


Saarebas

by Zycros



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Light BDSM, M/M, Romance, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-28
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-04-01 16:47:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 33,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4027408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zycros/pseuds/Zycros
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lavellan is only a Viddathari, but he changes the Iron Bull's life forever.</p><p>Pre-conclave/Au origin, teen lavebull under the Qun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: For those who don't have WoT2, Ashkaari was IB's nickname as a child.
> 
> For J, who tells me he will twin fangs my computer unless I write his Inky's canon, so I have to put my own on hold. I hope you understand that you've taken an approval hit for this.

His number was seventy two, but from the day he arrived Ashkaari had taken to calling him Taashath.

In that way, they mocked just by saying each other’s names: for Taashath meant calm – ‘to calm’ among the inept tongues of the Viddathari – and all who heard it knew it was meant to be a mockery. Seventy Two vibrated with the spirit of gaatlok. He was ready to explode into motion and violence at the slightest instigation, and before he’d even been in their dorm enough hours to surpass his name, he’d already been hauled off by Tama for punishment.

Ashkaari’s was not a name that Taas had chosen, but he spat it out like it was Tama’s worst vegetables.

He spat it in the kitchens, where he squatted like a frog on roof beams to avoid Tama and her chores. Ashkaari would be peeling roots and claws to be boiled for dinner, and out of the rafters would come his name, a single word drenched in venom. It was a word that spoke a thousand images, all of Ashkaari’s torture in those elven hands.

Of course Ashkaari tried to understand why he alone was isolated for this hatred. It was not as if he was the only Qunari in the dorm: nearly two-thirds of those who lived in their hall was born Qunari. A few were elven, but the rest – well, they were like him, weren’t they? Horn stubs on their heads, a few scaling and itchy and nervous about maturing into their jobs. All at least a head above Taas. Though Ashi was a head and a half taller than Taas, but surely even a Viddathari filled with anger couldn’t use that against someone, could they?

In his mind, he conjured all sorts of stories for their elven addition. Stories of slavery that they had heard a-plenty, perhaps of how Taas had been kidnapped from Dalish bosoms and forced to do… Whatever it was that depraved Vints did to children that looked like they couldn’t carry a staff without falling over.

Perhaps Taas was a city-elf instead, born to generations of elves that were sacrificed for blood magic and so Taas… Resents the Qunari for saving him? No, that didn’t make sense either, but it was certainly amusing to think of Taas being carried away for any blood magic, the elf being as slippery as an eel _befor_ e any blood even gets on him.

A week in however, Ashkaari realized that that might well be the case – that Taas shadowed him because Ashi represented everything he was trying to overcome. That perhaps he feared his Qunari captors, and he detested Ashi especially because in these dorms, he was closest in appearance to whatever Antaam unit had captured him.

He first guessed this to be so while he was doing inventory chores. This wasn’t unusual, for Ash spent a lot of his time carrying things back and forth for the Tamassarans who were loathed to call out the older boys for these menial tasks. They tend to be in the full bloom of maturation, and that meant a lot of bad tempers and broken crates and fistfights, so it was almost always Ashkaari and Dath – an unfortunate boy a year older than he whose only sign of maturing was a startling horizontal growth that threatened the biggest pairs of pants Tama could find.

That day, Taas had been tormenting him all day. First he’d hidden rocks in Ashi’s sacks, which he’d been task to carry up and down the small hill behind their dorm as training, and it’d taken Ashkaari almost the whole way up to realize that the weight of his sack might not be an official change in his regiment by the trainer.

Then Taas had purposely taken the spot opposite him during noon-meal, only to trade it at the very last minute with Dath, who always looked so bloody miserable about his portions that – _Vashedan! How was a boy supposed to eat in peace with that sad face staring at him?_ – he’d ended up giving Dath most of his noon-meal.

So by the time he’d been called to chores with a sheepish Dath, he knew that this was most likely one of those days where Taas had decided to be an imp and annoy him the entire day. Ash was not deterred by this – in some small way he’d begun enjoying Taas presence – it kept him sharp, at least, in a way that few of his peers did anymore. Most other Qunari had learned long ago that mind games with Ashkaari was not particularly fun unless Ashi decided it should be so, so this intruder and his attempts at sabotage were rather exciting. It was not as if Taas was particularly cunning – no, for all his fancy footwork the elf was about as subtle as a rock to the head. But in his challengeless challenge at least, there was much pleasure to look forward too.

So he worked, he and Dath, moving crates and sacks to and from the ration-master to replenish their dormitory’s storeroom. It was hard work but not challenging, and Ashkaari had long since taken to solving logic problems by the time high-noon came about. A special sort of logic rules devised by the Bas of Thedas, glimpsed from a book he’d managed to borrow of Besrathari – and he was so engrossed that he’d almost missed the flicker of red hair.

It was their last round of supplies from the ration-master, and so their storeroom was filled almost to the roof. The elf squatted in one dusty corner where they were supposed to put this last round of supplies, surrounded by opened crates.

“Bloody – not you again! I swear, he’s like a demon!” Dath cried.

It was he indeed, slinking around the darkness of the storeroom, clearly having tampered with – well, something. Those freckled cheeks did not so much as flush, and he gave Dath a defiant stare.

“Didn’t mean to include you,” Taas managed in his mangled Qunlat. “But so it shall be, you will have to share this too.”

To Ashi, he said gleefully in Common. “Hope you enjoy this one, can’t wait to see what the Tamassarans would say when they find out what a mess _you’ve_ made. Would you go without dinner, do you think?”

“Even if I do, I still wouldn’t shrink to your size,” Ashi drawled, “If your plan is to starve me into a shrimp for an equal battle, I’m afraid you’ll have to steal our food for yourself too.”

“I would never want to look like you.”

“Well, you couldn’t. Not unless you strap some Hart horns to your forehead.”

“Your stubs, you mean? Those tiny little -” Taas broke off into a string of Tevinter words, harsh-toned and foreign sounding. Ashi was sure at least a few words were comparing his horns to parts of the body.    

Ashi considered their situation. It was true that he could convince Tama that it was Taas who had tampered with the inventory, for most of the Tamassarans knew of Taas’ reputation, and by now he’d told several of them about Taas and his habitual shadowing. This of course, does not mean that he would be exempt from actually cleaning up the inventory himself, because if the Tamassarans had been able to catch Taas yet – well if they had he certainly would not be here, dirty as a mouse and twice as happy about it, would he? For he was happy about it, no doubt – Ash had scarce seen him as happy as this since his arrival in their dormitory, an impish smile blossoming into a downright gleeful grin.

No, the best way to deal with this was to convince Taas to come clean with exactly what he’d done – so that even if he disappeared, which he was sure to do – at least they would have a quicker time of it.

Decision made, Ashkaari took a step towards him.

“Now Taashath, be reasonable,” He began. “You must know that this affects more than the two of us.”

“Cut my throat, for I will never speak.”

“And what if the whole dormitory were to end up in the outhouses, sick to the horns? Think of the smell, Taas. The _smell_.”

“Tough titty. Know what’s great about not having a hooked nose, hook-nose? You don’t smell that much.”

“Oh, come on!” Dath said. “Hasn’t this gone far enough? Isn’t it bad enough that we have to clean up your mess?”

Ashkaari sighed. He did not like direct confrontations. His nerves frazzled at the thought of it devolving into an argument – or worse, a fight – and in this at least he could admit to himself he was as much a coward as Dath. So he tried. Back and forth he went with Taas, like dancing and unfamiliar dance with an opponent who might at any moment cut you in the knees and leave you to bleed. He bargained. He refused. He bargained. He refused. And on, and on, until Dath finally lost his patience and shouted.

“Vashe! Enough of this bullshit! If you don’t tell us what you’ve done, we’ll just beat it out of you!”

He advanced on Taas, crowding him into a corner of the storeroom and for the first time since Taas came to their dormitory, Askhaari saw fear in him. For a moment – just before the ritual defiance and rudeness returned, he saw how Taas looked up at Dath, and knew that he did not see Dath as he was. He did not see a big guy who was essentially incapable of actual violence, as harmless as a nug. Having cornered Taashath, Dath’s next move was likely to look at Ashi questioningly, as if to ask ‘How does one go about beating something out of someone without actually beating them?’

He looked up at Dath, saw him for his size, and was cowed in the same way he must have been cowed in Tevinter, where he’d spend his life on his knees to those bigger and stronger than him.

In that moment, Ashkaari understood that for all his pranks, Taas was only trying to test his bindings, to knock against the walls of the Qun to see if they would bite him if he knocked hard enough – and if they did, then what? He wins? He loses, (or is it gain?) faith, somehow? Ashkaari could not guess, could not even begin to understand, and it seemed trivial to guess so much of a person without proof anyhow.

Ash hesitated too long, and Dath had reached out to Taas in that interim, to shake an answer out of him perhaps.

Quick as Saarebas flashfire, Taas was on him, attacking before he could so much as breathe on him. He reared back that small fist and let loose, again and again, catching Dath square on the jaw twice before he leapt off him and dashed out of the room. It was less time than five raindrops, and Dath was already laid out on the floor with the beginning of a bruise in his chin.

“Oh --- that little shit!” Dath groaned, cradling his jaw. “Bloody flashfire, that one.”

He cracked his jaw, and cried out. “Punches like the damned Arishok. _Vashedan_ , Ashkaari, he’s a little elven demon I tell you! I bet the Tevinter summoned that little bastard out and set him on us.

He groaned again. “Beaten by an elf! I’m never going to live this down, am I?”

Ashkaari chuckled, giving him a hand up.

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell if you won’t.”

“Well, someone will have to tell. Tama is going to take one look at this and – “

And as if a demon spoke her name, a Tamassaran burst in right there and then to demand what the commotion was all about.

 

\--

 

That night, he was in the kitchen again, peeling – of all things – Bas deathroot to be boiled into poultice the next morning. It was late, and everyone was asleep except the weavers, who worked nights and clicked away at their spinning wheels. It was a little tradition, theirs, to weave in the moonlight so that it may strengthen the cloth. Tama said it was likely a tradition from back in the Kossith days, and it was one of the last remaining traditions that weren’t rooted in the practicality of the Qun.

The deathroots in turn, were a tricky thing to peel in candlelight. Cutting too deep and rendering it poisonous after all, wouldn’t make it a good poultice. He hummed to himself while he peeled, and just when he was about to indulge in Bas problems again, the heavy kitchen doors were moved with a soft grunt by one five stones lighter than the heavy wooden frame.

A familiar red head poked through the door, scowled, and said, “I thought I could surprise you.”

“You haven’t yet. Probably never will.”

Pushing the door shut, the elf entered the kitchen. He stopped self-consciously by the windows, not sure where to put his hands, or even himself. He settled by stuffing them into filthy pockets that had been home to rats and rabbits and God knows what rodents the elf had stuck in them when he thought no one was looking. He had not had a good washing-to since he’d gotten here, and his tunic looked bad and smelt worst.

Ashkaari ignored him, skinning deathrooth while the little shit stewed in discomfort. So let him, what did Ash owe him anyway – besides that he was complex and therefore interesting. Nothing. Just another runty Viddathari whose days here were numbered if he kept up his rebelliousness.

With no banter forthcoming from Ashi, the elf had to start. “Why did you tell Tama you were the one who punched Dath?”

“Oh, no.”

“What? It was a question. Did I use the wrong tense?”

“No, your Qunlat was fine. I meant ‘Oh, no’, as in ‘oh no, he’s not going to make this about me saving him, is it?’ Because it isn’t. Not even a nug-dropping-bit.”

At this, Taas flushed – and Ashkaari saw through his lashes that it seemed to reach the tips of his ears.

“I wasn’t thinking that!”

“No? This I must hear.”

“I thought – maybe – you know.”

“Nope.”

“I thought – Fasta vass! You bloody well know what I thought!”

“Yeah, and like I said, it’s got nothing to do with you.” Ash looked up at him, pinning him with the most Sten-like glare he could muster. He’d spent hours practicing this look for the day they would announce him to be fit for a Sten, so he knew he got it perfectly. “Dath’s already being bullied for a late-bloomer. He hasn’t got his scales yet, and he’s fully a year older than most of the people who’s suddenly shooting horns out of their eyebrows. Well, not really – but you get what I mean. His stubs hasn’t even shown yet.”

Taas nodded.

“Dath doesn’t need the added reputation of being floored by an elf. The Tamassarans – they hear, they speak for and against. He wants to be a blacksmith, a strong artisan, and I’m not going to let you be the death of his dreams.”

He glared at Taas until he got a muted nod in return, and went back to the deathroot. For the longest while, the only sounds in the room was the methodical shucking sounds made by his knife, and his own breathing. The elf hardly seems to exist in the room. That must be how he snuck about so often. The Qunari were a giant, stomping race that seemed to obstruct the very air in their room just by being in it. They moved from hallway to hallway with footsteps that announce their arrival in advance. In contrast, Taashath was lithe – lither even than the elven Qunari who were born under the Qun, and so never needed a soft step. To avoid an angry master, perhaps.

The questions danced on the tip of his tongue, questions on what Tevinter was like and whether the elf had ever been to Minrathous. But Ashkaari willed them into silence, for this was one elf he didn’t really want to know. He found Taas refreshing, but not so refreshing that he wanted to bond with this troublemaker, destined to leave the dormitory in disgrace. Back to the Kabethari perhaps, having proven that he is not yet worthy of being called a convert of the Qun.

When the elf spoke, his voice was soft and uncertain.

“What about people like me? The Viddathari... Could we be artisans, if we wanted?”

“Yes.”

“It doesn’t count? Against us, I mean. That we weren’t born here. That we don’t have the horns and the... Right blood?”

Ashkaari snorted. “If blood mattered, we wouldn’t choose this ugly mug.”

“What?”

“Ehh, just – you know. Elves aren’t _grey_.”

Taas burst out laughing, a harsh barking sound that sounded rusty and unpracticed. “I didn’t think you guys would think we’re prettier, though that _is_ the truth.” He said smugly.

“Don’t let it get to your head. We would still go with the ugly mug because it’s not puny… Unlike someone I know.”

“Oh slur away, horned one. I just fell one of you giants today.”

“No, you caught a giant by surprise. All Dath had to do was sit on you and you’d be broken in six places.”

“Maybe, but he won’t.” Taas said confidently.

Ashkaari did smile then. “Figured that out, did you?”

“Yeah well, not having chores gives a person time to think.”

Ashkaari grunted.

“Maybe the perfect race would be thinner Qunaris. Like... Us, but really tall, with horns?”

“You ever saw carvings of Terror demons?”

“Some, in Tevinter.”

“Well, you just described that.”

They laughed, then lapsed back into silence, now a more comfortable one than the strained quietness from before.

“Do you...” Taas began hesitantly, clearing his throat. “Do you want a hand with those roots? I’ve peeled many before, and I know a better way to it than well, _that_.”

The disdain he showed for Ashkaari’s dicing methods were second only to the amount he injected into Ashi’s name. Ashkaari pulled up a stool and patted it.

“Take a seat, grab a knife, cut.”

He took it. A dozen roots in, Taas spoke.

“You know I really didn’t tamper with the inventory, right? I just wanted you guys to sweat for nothing.”

“Yes, I got that. I thank you kindly.”

“No need to get huffy.”

“Evidently. Sweating but not huffing. You’re a cruel master, Taas.”

“Yes, well.”

“Well.”

And having used up all the words they had for each other, they lapsed into one final silence. This silence lasted through the night, and they were accompanied only by the sounds made by tortured Deathroot skin. It was the kind of truce that Ashkaari liked and thought was particularly Qunari, one where each party simply agreed to something which was undefined, unspoken, but was as real as a tangible, word-on-paper agreement. Kost. For now.

When dawn arrived, a Tamasarran came to the kitchens expecting good work from the ever reliable Ashkaari and found instead the elusive runt they’d been hunting all week, worn out by all the running about and sleeping soundly. She duly captured him and carried him away to the rivers for a good washing behind those great ears, unmindful of all the thrashing and Tevinter swearwords about _her_ Tamassaran.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- all the lore is imaginary  
> \- at some point there will be sex, but we'll tackle that fruit later
> 
> Any feedback is appreciated! ;D


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Ashkaari is a nerd.

The Tamassrans had this wild notion that Ashkaari would be able to control Taas, now that they’d survived a room together, and so like fat bait laid out to catch wild Gurn they’d decided to pair Taas with Ashkaari for chores instead.

The idea was so unlikely – partly because Taashath still could not be found unless he wanted to – that for his peace of mind Ashkaari took to doing his chores alone instead. It wasn’t as if Taas actually accepted their authority, though by the third week he’d been caught and spanked by enough Tamassrans that he would sometimes slink in the back during the tale-telling to scowl at the tale-weaver.

For in the Qun it was assume that children could understand just as well as the older ones could, and all the Imekari listened to the same tales over and over again since childhood. Mostly they spoke of Kossith, but sometimes there were stories of the world across the sea too. Not the true sea, but Thedas and true-Tevinter, which none of them had ever seen before in their short lives. There was no travelling for Imekari, and so what narrow world they’d seen consisted of their own dorms and the lands around their settlement, which they would venture out to, to scavenge for herbs that adult time was too valuable for.

The rest of the time, Taas was nowhere to be found. He disappeared so well into shadows that Ashkaari was inclined to believe Dath’s theory of him being a Tevinter demon. Sure enough, if you wanted to communicate with Taas, the process involved was a bit like some exotic Vint ritual.

First, you had to be in the dormitory pallet room between high-noon and evening. This was because the laundry was done after evening meals, and Taas would sneak in to trade filthy clothes and blankets for whatever was laid out on his pallet. But one did not directly converse with Taashath in this manner, because Taas was like a startled wild Qalaba, which was inclined to shit all over you to make its escape.

No, instead one had to wrap up whatever one wished to communicate in Taashath’s blankets, which he unfailingly took with him. Wherever he holed up for the night, his thin frame was inadequate insulation for and the blanket went with him always. From the actual plants and dirt on his blanket alone Ashkaari might have been able to guess where he spent his nights, but as Tama said – Imekari who prod dragons were likely to get burned.

So communication: an Elfroot to signal that they had herb-picking duties the next day. Dry bread crust meant that they were needed in the kitchen. An empty bottle if they had to mix herbs in the apothecary wing, and flowers because – well flowers didn’t actually have a meaning, but didn’t everyone say that the Dalish were flower-children? Perhaps he would like them.

The important thing was to actually check Ashkaari’s own blankets for the reply. Like an omen from the Glorious Ones, there would be tangible replies in them. A handful of dead grass meant ‘Maybe I’ll show up’, and dirt meant ‘Probably not’, while a handful of droppings meant ‘Fuck you’. All this was whisked away at laundry time by the Tamassrans, who despaired at Ashkaari’s recent terrible habits of hygiene - so as you can see, time was of the essence.

 

 

\--

 

On one of those rare days when they were out in the highlands for herb-picking, Taashath would come to be useless. Herb-picking was Taas’ favorite activity by far, perhaps because they did it far away from any supervising adult eye. He was far more likely to show up for it than say, kitchen duty, which was done under the watchful eye of Tama. But be that as it may, Taashath was especially useless for herb-picking.

At first Taas had strut upon the fields as if he owned them, declaring to Ashkaari that he should just wait to witness the glorious way with which elves communicated with nature. That idea quickly disappeared when they both realized that although Taashath’s hands were three sizes smaller than his own, they managed to mangle the most important parts of every plant they encountered.

They meet Sarpan, and he would squeeze them too hard and make them useless. They meet Elfroot, and somehow he manages to snap the stem at exactly the wrong place. They meet the shrieking herbs of Asaanda, and they screeched – literally – at his manhandling. To say nothing of the time he nearly had his arm eaten off by the Kasaanda, which surely even a child could tell was bad news by all the teeth. For shit’s sake, there was still animal flesh hanging off the thing!

So yes, he was useless. And since herbs were not particularly heavy, Ashkaari did not even need him for the burden. Instead, Taas would hang about him, as useful as a seventh toe. He was good conversation, at least. Even if he was a surly conversationalist, he was more talkative than stoic Qunari, who could pass an entire afternoon in grunts.

The problem was that Taas had nothing to say that was valuable, for he refused to speak of his time in Tevinter, and he didn’t know enough of the Qunari to debate or discuss anything, so they ended up bickering a lot about everything from how the four-chambered stomach of Dathrasis work to the exact pigment of the sky. What he did too, was ask a _lot_ of questions.

“Why do you folks allow the Kasaanda to live then, if it’s so bloody dangerous? A blighted carnivorous plant, for shit’s sake! In Tevinter, the Altus would launch a hunting party and roast every single one in sight.” They were at a shady clearing, figuring out the best way to advance that wouldn’t bring them into a clearing of man-eating plants. Taas kicked at bits of dirt – the height of his usefulness – while Ashkaari examined the animal treks they found to determine safe passage.

“Really? I should think they’d take it home and make pets of it. Or declare them their long-lost relatives.”

“Yes well, there is that. Or throw someone at it for amusement, I suppose.”

“Mhmm. This way.” Ashkaari led them onwards to an even more shaded clearing, this one dark enough for Deep Mushrooms to grow between the cracks of the tree roots. They set about to work, for even Taashath couldn’t fuck up mushrooms. They worked in silence, which – as Ashkaari had figured out a few weeks ago – was the bane of Taas’ existence.

“This silence is awkward.” He declared. There was no meaningful follow-up to it, not even an attempt at discussion. Typical, Ashi thought – gave him a problem and expected him to solve it singlehandedly.

“I could _sing_.” He threatened.

“Please don’t. I’d take my chances with the meat-plant.”

“Well, then.”

“Don’t ‘well, then’ me. Don’t you have anything to say? Why are you Qunari so frightfully quiet?”

“The mouth in speech is the way by which the mind empties.” He told him in Qunlat. The elf’s Qunlat had improved considerably, considering that he’d been here only slightly more than a month and a half. He was smart, but not yet smart enough for Qunari proverbs. He could feel Taashath rolling his eyes at him without looking up.

“Here’s a thing to discuss then,” Ashkaari suggested. “Why do you hate silence so much? Every time we hear the sound of our breathing you hasten to fill the silence with pointless yapping.”

It was a rhetorical question, and Ashkaari asked it so that they might be silent again. The quickest way to shut Taashath up was to ask him a personal question. Who were your parents? Were you always a slave? How did the Antaam find you? What was your name before you were a number? He would immediately clamp shut, so it was a great method.

And so he did, but right before Ashkaari was about to hum, Taas answered him.

“In Tevinter, the silence usually means that the magister is preparing for a ritual. They would go to these chambers – and all the servants would be a-hushed. All of us, wondering if they were going to cut someone’s throat or just ask us to bring them a goat.”

A pause, and a grunt from yanking a stubborn mushroom. “So there we were, shaking in our boots, and there was no way to know in advance which it was. They’d call us to the ritual chambers sometimes, and either you were going to hold a chalice for them or you were going to be sacrificed. Either you were going to live, or you were going to die. There was no way to know – and that, that was scarier than going in there knowing for sure it’s all over.”

Ashkaari sighed. He could picture it all too easily, the constant stress of being in danger. He himself had never been in true-danger, except once when a Gurn had singled him out during a practice hunt. That sort of silent fear would be more akin to a demon whose footsteps you couldn’t hear, who you couldn’t avoid by moving forward because that might well be the way into it.

“That’s… Harsh.”

“Yup. So I like talking.”

“Yeah.”

“Because talking meant I wasn’t about to die, and the world was alright. So any chance we had, I would go to the kitchens and pester Maman to death. You’d always know with her, because she gossips as viciously as an Altus when everything’s alright, so that it’s doubly scary when she doesn’t. Sometimes she knows – which it’s going to be – but she doesn’t say. She says it’s easier, whatever that means.”

“She would know, the Tamassrans always know.”

But having opened Taas up, Ashkaari had no idea how to proceed. They sat in the clearing with their backs to each other, occupied by their own chores, so there was no way of seeing Taashath’s expressions. No way of observing, or guessing whether Taas was pulling his leg or if he was upset.

He needn’t have worried. Taas grabbed the topic by the horns, so to speak. “You’re wondering why I’m telling you this.”

“Breathlessly.” He quipped.

“Well, I’ve decided you’re alright. You’re a bit shy. There was a boy just like you back home. Stout, human, and kind of square. Could knock him out if you talk to him too long. I liked shy, so – I’ve decided to like you.”

Ashkaari’s eyebrows threatened to disappear into his hairline, and he had to turn around just to let him see it. Having finished his side of the clearing – at least half the size of Ashi’s own – Taas poured his findings into their sack and plopped down beside Ashkaari.

“I am _what?_ You’re kidding, right?”

“You don’t fool me. I bet the only reason you don’t blush is because you can’t with that grey hide of yours.”

He chuckled. “I like it. Is this what living with the Vint teaches you? Wild conjectures based off no evidence?”

“Nope. I’ve seen you with that boy I punched. You two, and that human boy. You guys all carry yourself the same way, like you’d rather run up the hills than talk. Like Soparatti bargaining with a magister. Difference is, you don’t let it show.”

“Maybe it’s just you – running is easier than talking to you.” Ashkaari said.

“Can’t see why I’m the problem. You’re the one leaving rat droppings in my smallclothes.”

“I told you, they’re snacks.”

“Well, if _you’re_ not eating it – and you eat every bloody thing – I’m certainly not putting it in my mouth.”

“And as for friendship, don’t let it go to your head. I need someone to jack me up to high places. You’re tall. Therefore, I need you. You’re still on probation.” He declared.

Need. It was a word he rarely heard even when the Qunari spoke in the common tongue – which was rare enough as it was. In the Qun, there was only what it demands, what must be. There was no room for soft desires like want and need, which they associated with greed and hubris. What room is there in the machinery of the Qun for such things? But on the elf’s tongue, it rolled naturally. _Neeeeeeeeeed_. Like a buttery snack of a word, delicious and desirable for some unknown reason.

Lost in their own thoughts, they harvested the rest of the mushrooms and deposited it in the sack. Before they finished the last batch, Ashkaari decided to take a stab at probing the elf for more information.

“So… Maman. That means she’s your Tama, right? Like, your own personal Tama.”

“Not really, there were a lot of us there.”

“But she was _your_ Tama?”

“Yes…?”

“As in blood-born. Like, you’re hers?”

“She was just Maman, and she took care of us.”

“Wait so—“

“I don’t want to talk about it.” He said, surly tone back again. Ashkaari sighed, soothing his thwarted curiosity with the promise that they would get it all out of the elf, one way or another. If he was to be tasked with babysitting Taashath, there was no way he wasn’t going to milk it for all the information on the outside world he could get.

“Right. You wanna head back?”

“Oh, I want to head back. I have plans I have to carry out before sundown.”

And just like that, he was off, dashing willy-nilly into a jungle of carnivorous plant that’d eaten animals bigger than him for breakfast to avoid conversation when it suited him, and Ashkaari had to chase him down before the world was less one rash, mad, Vint-scarred elf.

 

\--

 

For Taashath, that first autumn passed in a lazy haze of herb-picking and Qunlat lessons with Ashkaari. He was leery of going to the language-masters responsible for teaching Vidatharris, for the classes were always filled with elven fanatics or those like him – sullen, grey converts who were clearly here more for the size of the Qun’s army than the Qun itself. The zealots preach and proselytize and constantly prod him to be a better Qunari in a way that true Qunaris never did, while the angry ones reminded him too much of himself. A reflection just slightly skewed enough that it appeared terrifying.

He turned instead to Ashkaari, who by chance he had chosen and by chance now they became friends. He was – at first glance at least, no different than other Qunari. The first reason Taas had to notice him was his proficiency in the Common tongue – and one is always glad to have someone who understands you are insulting them. He was hulking as they were hulking, but in time Taashath began to see that his instinct had had him gravitating towards the one Qunari who would never lay a hand on him.

For Ashkaari was gentle in a way that few other Qunaris his age were. It was easy to see the difference between older Qunaris and the younger ones in the dormitory. Beyond the obvious physical traits, it was the way they carried themselves. Those as old as Ashkaari were usually stoic and quiet. They clung to their obedience and pragmatism as if it was their lifeline and not their choice. There seem in them, a certain newfound surety that separated them from the younger Qunari, who played and jested as children did back in Vol Dorma. Sure, they were rougher and preferred games of sticks and brawling, but they were still children.

The older Qunaris seem almost… Altered. In an insentient way. Like beasts in the wild who’d suddenly grown tusks. Wild and free now to maul things to death, and exercising their utmost restrain to not do so.

Only a few that he’d met, like Ashkaari, Dath, and a trio of identical triplets - who preferred spinning poems and tales all day to mauling - remained as they were despite their age.

And so he stuck to Ashkaari, whom he observed and studied as religiously as his new language. He wanted to learn all he could about this gentle giant who shielded others and him, and hoisted any burden given to him without complain. Even if Ashkaari chafed at being labelled as a ‘gentle giant’.

“Gentle fucking nothing. You take that shit back,” He would say, and as a show he would shove Taashath straight into a puddle.

He sees things that contradict themselves. Here was Ashkaari, the stumbling ox who seemed to have little personality beyond his reliability, who has the undistinguished dream of being part of the Antaam – as almost every other Qunari dreams of – and of the glory of slaying dragons (which every fucking horned bastard wouldn’t shut up on).

But here also was Ashkaari, who befriended Besrathari, a Ben-Hassrath agent who chose to live in the outskirts of the forest skirting their dormitory when he wasn’t in active operation, who snuck books back to the dormitory full of strange Bas-languages. Works by the University of Orlais on decorum, on Chantry customs in some remote part of Fereldan, on Antivan Crow payments and where one may hire them, on the ruins of ancient elves. There were even books on Draconology (though admittedly this was hardly surprising) and on occasion, a recipe book on ways to prepare wyvern meat.

It was doubtful how much of these Ashkaari actually understood, because most of them were rendered in their native languages, most of which Ashi understood poorly. Taashath himself could barely make out their titles sometimes, and wouldn’t even know what they were on about if it weren’t for the illustrations. More than once Taashath would come across Ashkaari in the armory past evening-meal, swearing and cursing at the books in candlelight.

The armory was where Ashkaari could always be found when there were no chores to be done. The dormitory’s armory was a perfunctory one, a storage for cast-off and rusty weapons that the Antaam gave them to train their little soldiers really, and for that reason it was hardly used in the day and never at night.

Here Ashkaari would always be, happily settled in the pallet and bedroll he stashed away behind a suit of armor. The books were all hidden in a chest, beneath ceremonial banners. Taas would ignore them all, go straight to Ashkaari, and burrowed under his blankets.

“Shove off, lard-ass.” He’d say, elbowing him.

“Hey now, twig-toes. You’re the one in my bedroll.” Ashi would return, before they turn to whatever book Ashi was on that day and Taas would demand that he be read to. Not because he actually wanted to know – well, it was fascinating, but not as fascinating as the timber of Ashkaari’s voice, which every day seemed to change: a little deeper, a little stronger, a greater rumble in the deeper tones.

And he liked especially when they tackled Orlesian books, for here Ashkaari was so inept with the Orlesian’s lilting, flowery way of speech that he would fumble. The fumbling becomes grumbling, then growling, then cursing, and by some measure of madness this made Taashath felt safest of them all.

Lying beside him – pretending to keep his eyes on the book, picturing how he would deface these ridiculous things if Ashkaari would not kill him for it – sometimes curled under Ashkaari’s arm when the book was big enough that it was easier for Ashi to flip the book that way. It was a reminder that for all the fading uncertainty of life under the Qun, a religion he had lied himself into for security, for all the violence and barely-restrained anger that he sees in these creatures’ faces, here was one who had never threatened him in any way, no matter how much he tormented him.

He would let the timber of Ashi’s voice lure him to sleep, until Ashi either woke him up or deposited him in his own pallet in their bedding hall.

Those nights too, were when Ashkaari would press him for stories of what Vol Dorma had been like. He knew all too well how pliant Taashath would be after their reading sessions, and Ashi would never fail to slip a question or two in right before Taas fell asleep, guessing rightly that a sleepy Taas would rather answer his questions quickly so that he might sleep.

“Taashath, how was the road from Vol Dorma to here like? Were there many mountains? Were they craggy, smooth, many nooks for hidden beasts?”

“Oh, loads,” Taas would yawn.

“And did you meet many monsters? Dragons?” He asked excitedly.

“Boatloads and boatloads. And sometimes there were Phoenixes that flew pass.”

“Flew? But – Phoenixes don’t fly. They’ve devolved from their flying cousins.”

“The ones in the Floricium Pass did. Great big feathered wings that covered the sun itself when they dove pass. Blocked out everything. It’s as if there’s no sky at all.”

“Yeah?” Ashi would say skeptically, that big brain desperately trying to reconcile this information with all the bestiaries he’d read. “How’s that?”

“And it swoops, you know. Just swooped down on us screaming its head off. Once saw it dove right at a herd of Gurn and flew off with a mouthful of it. Ate the middle right off it, the old titty.”

Ashkaari pulled a face. “Swoop? But the shape of the Phoenixes’ bodies aren’t suited for flight. Their scales itself would need wings twice the size—“

“Books, books, books. I’m telling you. They swoop.”

“Head-first or a sort of jabbing dive?” He made a motion with his hands.

“Head-first.”

“And their tails? Are the spikes really strong enough to spear through an armored caravan?”

“Sure thing. I didn’t really see one, of course, but there was this abandoned caravan at the side of the road— Hey!”

“You little shit!” Ashkaari cried, smothering him with the blanket. They traded playful punches that way, Taas wrapped up like a moving sack and kicking out blindly at Ashi and promising ball-numbing pains. “Phoenix tails are the softest parts on them! It’s a delicacy, for shit’s sake!”

When he’d finally freed himself he aimed his knee at Ashkaari’s crotch, but the brute easily deflected him.

“It’s your own fault, you’re the little liar.” Ashi would say, and they would spend the rest of the night bickering about what Taas actually saw, with Ashi desperately trying to distill the truth out of Taashath’s increasingly wild lies.

Other nights were quieter: Ashkaari reading books on Tevinter history and antiquities, their images making Taashath homesick. He remembers the pillars, the sharp angles of the architecture, the smell of burning donkey flesh they sell on the streets for peasants, still on fire when they’re snatched out of the vendors’ hands by meat-starved customers.

Ashkaari would soften him with those memories, marinating him like a piece of meat before plying him with questions about home: what did they make for the magisters? What were their favourite foods? Did they eat them in volume, were they spicy or tasteless, were their feasts rowdy and joyous, secretive and quiet?

“Why do you care, Ashikaari? All you need to know about Vints is that they bleed just the same as us if you cleave them in the neck.”

“But you never know, right? What if you need to poison them someday? Maybe you invite some over, and then you pour in some poison in your meat pie and bam! Less cleaning to be done.”

“It wouldn’t work,” Taas told him flatly. “Feast foods are all served to servants three days beforehand, and it’s sealed away until they’re sure it’s safe. All you’d end up with is a lot of dead elves in your yard.”  
  
“Oh. _Shit._ ”

“Yeah.”

And that was the end of that.

Other nights, he would lay on his back, staring at cobwebs and wishing that he could see the sky in here, or that they could sneak out to the yard and lay there instead. The air suffocated him, and he longed for the fields and the grass and the forests, and he would volunteer information when Ashkaari lapsed into silent reading for an engrossing book.

“Maman wasn’t my mother, it was some Dalish woman.” He said, on one occasion.

Even in the weak candlelight, he could see Ashkaari’s ears give a slight twitch of interest.

“She just took us all under the wing, is all. The magister grew us like crops, and because we’ve never known what the outside world is like, because we could never survive out there, we stay. She remembers, and she tells us. Or maybe she lies –-- I don’t know. Tell us things we want to hear, maybe things we need to hear. Some of us get heroic parents who tried to fight for what was right. Some of us got farmers that fell on such hard times that they had to sell their own children, even if they regretted it bitterly.”

“What we never got were the criminals and the lousy shits of this world. No one had parents who sold them instead of crops because they were worth more, and because you can’t eat children. No one was left on the street, yet another unwanted burden in a world of many unwanted burdens, not even given a blanket because why shield a corpse from the wind? And Maman tells me who my mother was, so this is all the mother I’m ever going to have.”  
  
He paused for breath, and then –

“She told me the magister’s servants attacked a small camp of Dalish when their hunters were out, and they killed the guards and captured everyone in the camp.”

His fingers drew light patterns on the bedroll between then, tracing and guessing at Dalish patterns he’d only seen in passing. “She was pregnant with me. I don’t know if it was before – or after, with one of the servants. I guess it was before, since I haven’t got a human-looking bone in me. Farted me out in some god-forsaken slave-trading post, then died, and they brought me back to the magister’s mansion like good ol’ livestock when they were done selling slaves. I probably stewed in my own shit for the first two months of my life.”

Usually Ashkaari would not say a single word, knowing by then that Taashath was only looking for any reason to lash out and hit him. He would take it too, until he could not, and then they would cease to speak for days. This room would go cold, unused and dark until Taashath finally gave up their cold war and pushed his noon-meal over as peace offering. Sometimes it went untouched, but eventually Ashkaari would push it back, and they’d start pushing it back and forth while insulting each other, and the lamp would light again that night.

Now, Ashkaari says, “I’m sorry. Did you find out what she was?”

He said it in the only way he knew, as if what she was mattered more than who she was. As if Taashath knowing whether she was a weaver or a huntress or a carver was more important than knowing the kind of flowers she liked, her favorite animal, her voice.

“I don’t know anything about her. Except that she was weak.” His fingers seizes the bedroll tightly, but he kept the anger out of his voice, for really – there was no point. “And I don’t know what it is that I’m going to be, but I’m never going to be _that_.”

Ashkaari looked at him, then back to the book.

“Alright,” He said.

And that was the end of that too.

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

 

Winter is the season for endurance, and so Ashkaari endured.

Trainings typically picked up during the winter season, for the cold stopped many conventional activities. Farms were emptied of fodder for the animals at the end of autumn, and fully half the livestock kept in Par Vollen hibernated throughout the winter. This meant that all the farmers and herders and merchants of Par Vollen would suddenly find too much time on their hands, and to prevent any rowdiness and a nightly excess with Maraas-lok, the Arigena would hold many physical trainings throughout the season.

Most of the ones for the adults were entertainment – competing over who could last the longest in a half-frozen lake for example, or who could spear-fish faster in the rivers that still ran. For the Imekari, who was unformed and so must be prepared to be anything, they were doubly drilled in hunting and fighting and blacksmithing and crafting and cooking, and all their chores were suddenly replaced by grueling activities outdoors.

Taashath took to these like a Tusket to water, the first to report in for hunting and crafting and the first to flee for melee fighting. For Ashkaari himself, it was no different than his previous winters, except that in this one he had to look out for the Tuskeling too, herding him towards lessons and showing him for the fifteenth time the right way to hold a shield and to stop him from using it as a seat to slide down the sides of cliffs.

These were no great challenges and even entertaining at times. What worried him more than that was that at the end of high-winter, they would begin the preparations for a great hunt for all the Imekari who had begun scaling. It would last all throughout the spring, until high-summer, when they would all set out to hunt for the Great Gurgurt. Those who survived the challenge with merit would be looked upon favorably, and had more say in what they may become. Obviously, not all Qunari scaled, so those races who didn’t were obliged to join if they’d celebrated their sixteenth name-day.

Near as anyone could tell, Taashath was close enough to sixteen that he would be joining, and Ashkaari shuddered to think how he would keep them both alive long enough in the wilderness, much less win any challenge with the elf’s propensity to dive headfirst into the jaws of a beast. For Taashath until now showed no talent with any weapon. He was blind with a bow, weak-chinned with a shield, and he bashed with his swords and slashed with his mauls. There was no helping it – as much as Ashkaari wanted to – craved, even – winning the challenge, his task was to keep Taas alive first and foremost, and he’d no doubt that the way to do so did not lie in the direction of the Great Gurgurt.

What he must also endure:

The others in the dorm whispers, not to them but amongst themselves. In between chores, in between lessons and tasks and challenges, they ask themselves why is it that Ashkaari tolerates the elven interloper, and not just tolerate it, but _enjoy it_.

For as much as the Qun liked to tell its practitioners that all was equal, all was not always equal. A viddathari was a viddathari, and would always be held to greater scrutiny, watched for signs of relapses, for disobedience – and who more suited to these judgements than Taashath, who took pride in being the worst sort of Qunari you could find?

So the others ask themselves and the bold ask Ashkaari, why it was that he favored this elf, and received no answer.

Was it because he enjoyed watching the little elf’s ass clench when he pounds herbs with a pestle? The soft cries of pain when he scrubs off his sunburnt skin – which should not be erotic, but is? Because he refused the indignity of new pants, and so every time he bends over his pants rides up to reveal the most elegant ankles?

This was what many assume – that their tryst was sexual in nature, and though that was frowned upon by the Tamassrans (the brawling that come from the jealous bickerings!) it was not forbidden.

But perhaps it was because of other things. Perhaps the elf was a smart one, and Ashkaari enjoyed his little mind games with an equal, or perhaps again the elf was a stupid one, and Ashkaari enjoyed controlling and manipulating an elf who hadn’t yet learned that Ashkaari was as cunning as the day was long, and one was to watch one’s favorite boots closely or risk losing them in a trick.

Maybe it was something sentimental instead: friendship, and because Ashkaari and Taashath were secretly outcasts whom no one would admit were outcasts, for all the things they were and were not, and because of it they deserved each other.

Perhaps all these things, but Ashkaari preferred his answer to be need. That one word that rolled off the tip of your tongue, undefined because such things could not be defined. Why does one feel better in the sun? Need – for sustenance, for guidance, for light. Why does Taashath come to him? For all these things. And perhaps Ashkaari enjoys being needed, because that which is needed is never useless.

 

\--

 

One day in fade-winter, Ashkaari charged out to find Taashath with no small determination, and found Taas in exactly where he knew him to be – practicing his archery in the training grounds. Taashath had some mad fantasy that he would be a great archer, like the Dalish were rumored to be, and he spent a lot of time in the archery yard. Ashkaari found him standing in a circle of arrows, all strewn around the training dummies. Most were shot by such an inept hand that they were all the way across the yard, by the sword dummies. The elf was cursing up a storm, shaking red with embarrassment. A whole line of elven Qunari were lined up by the fence, laughing at him.

“Would you like me as a target, flat-ear? I would feel no fear! It is not as if you could hit me!” One called out. Ashkaari speared him with a glare, but did not spend time to quell them. Instead, he began collecting the arrows on the ground.

“What are you doing? I’m not done practicing,” Taashath hissed.

“You’re done.”

“Give me that!” He made a grab for the arrows but Ashkaari easily held them beyond his reach.

“No. And you’re going to help me. Come on, we’re going on a trip.”

The elf frowned and gave him a suspicious look. “Is it a good trip?” He asked. Then, lasciviously, “Is it a trip _into_ anything nice? A _hard_ place, perhaps?”

Ashkaari could feel his face heating, but bless this skin that would not redden! Lately, Taashath had taken to flirting with him. He was maturing fast, and of course he wanted sex, and of course Taashath announced this confidently – ( _we are going to fuck, he declares_ ) – because the only thing that embarrassed Taas was inadequacy. And as he reassured Ashkaari repeatedly, he was not – in any manner of speaking – inadequate.

“Shut up and pick up your damned arrows,” He said roughly.

“You just want me to bend over,” He mouthed back, but obeyed. It was a measure of his trust in Ashkaari that he did so. Not too long ago he would have cut him in the knees, then tailed Ashkaari in secret to see where Ashi had planned to take him.

They were quickly done with packing, since Taashath brought his knapsack of supplies everywhere he went. Not too many things – a very light woolen blanket and enough food to last two days, as well as a score of small traps. No matter how comfortable he was in their settlement, he was always ready to escape if he needed to, and survive.

Together they travelled past the dormitory and into the nearby forest. It was quite a journey that they had, a trek that lasted several hours. For the place Ashkaari had in mind set beyond the highest plateau of the forest and slid down to the boundaries of where the Imekari were allowed to go. It bordered the Wildlands, and as they near it the landscape of knotted, stubby trees were replaced by small, flat rocky hills that poked out of dried grassland.

“Is there a reason we’re here?” Taashath asked when they stopped. “Is there a bear you need me to shoot?”

“If there was a bear I needed to shoot, I would shoot it myself. Also, the bears here aren’t much bigger than a big nug, and the worst they do is chew on your toes a little.”

“Are you making footwrap jokes? Again?”

“Nah, just thought it’d be good to know.”

“Ma’ seranas,” He said, practicing a Dalish phrase he picked up from some of the other Viddatharis. Doubtless he was mangling the pronunciation too. “So… Joking aside. What are we doing here?”

“We, are going camping.”

“We—what?” He looked around them, then at Ashi like he was crazy.

“You’re crazy,” He said, just to make it clearer. “We don’t have enough blankets between the both of us to warm our toes, and it just rained yesterday! There’d be no firewood to be had.”

“Precisely. So it’s a perfect chance to learn to survive.”

Taashath groaned. “Oh no, not another one of your lessons.”

“Yes. Another one of my lessons. We’re going to teach you how to survive the harshest of winter, with no fire and no warmth to be found. If you can survive this, you can survive anything.”

“I can survive anything, thanks very much.”

“I thought you would like to learn this,” Ashkaari pointed out. “You’re always carrying around that sack of yours. Traps aren’t going to help you much if you don’t know where to lay them.”

Taas opened his mouth to refute that, thought better, and shut it. “That’s true. But we don’t need to freeze to learn how to set traps.”

“This cold is nothing. Down in Thedas, their lakes and rivers are said to freeze for miles and miles, for half a year at a time when it’s a bad spell. And it’s so cold that they have to trade their armor for fur, for the cold of common steel would only freeze you.”

“Yes, and I’d be sure to hit you up for tips on how to survive a Theodosian winter if you horned bastards ever let me out of my pen, but _trust me_ , Ashkaari – I don’t need lessons on how to keep warm from common winters.”

Ashkaari scowled at him. “That’s big talk for a small elf – you wouldn’t even know the way back if I were to leave you here now. You must learn how to make camp anywhere. There are beasts in the wilderness that fear fire.”

“Make a fire, roll up some furs. What could be easier?” He said scornfully.

“There is – as you just pointed out – no dry firewood. We’ll start with that. Name me three things you can use as kindling in lieu of firewood.”

“Ashi’s lard-ass, Ashi’s pants, and Ashi’s load of hot air.”

“The names!” He insisted through gritted teeth.

“No! I’m freezing, and I want to get back for evening meals!”

At that refusal, something in Ashkaari broke, some dam holding up a force of emotion he’d held in himself all week, something he’d not even realized was there – stewing, boiling, burning – until it ate away the walls. With rough hands he grabbed Taashath and shook him for all his worth. He shoved Taas, growling, snarling, wanting to communicate all the frustration, all the fucking _worry_ that was eating away his insides. How could he make him understand that he was _nothing_ – that the world was a great big thing that would eat him and spit him out without a second fucking thought?

“Why the hell are you being so stubborn on this?” Ashkaari shouted. “Why can’t you just fucking _listen_ for once?”

“No, why are you?” Taashath shoved right back, but it hardly moved him.

“I – Dammit!” He slammed his fist into the tree, splitting the bark beside Taas’ head. The splinters bounced off his cheek, but it didn’t faze him. The little twerp didn’t even look the slightest bit afraid. Ashi released him and took a step back. He glared at him, and Taas glared right back, the fog of Ashkaari’s heavy breathing between them. Ashi was the first to look away, dragging a rough hand across his face in frustration.

It was a long time before he was calm enough to say, in measured tones, “You know about the Great Hunt, don’t you?” Still his voice shook with the adrenaline.

“That shitty excuse for a name-day feast you have? Yeah.”

“It’s _dangerous_. You don’t seem to get that.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“With what?” Ashkaari demanded. “With your bleeding arrows? Just what the hell do you think you’ll be taking care of yourself with? You can’t hit a Darthrasi in the ass if it was five steps away, and to give you a sword is to waste one.”

Taashath reared back as if he was slapped. “Is that what you think of me?”

“It’s not—“

“Is that what you think of me?” He shouted.

“It’s what I _know_ of you!” Ashkaari snarled. “You’re fucking useless with a weapon, and in six month’s time you’d still be fucking useless with a weapon! You refuse to see this, and I’m telling you right now - you won’t have a damned hope of surviving a whole month out in the wild if you won’t buckle down and learn how to bloody survive!”

 “You—“ Taashath shook from his fury. “You think that just because I can’t swing a sword as well as you do, I’m helpless? You know nothing, you damned shit-brained son of a bitch! You –“ And out came the torrent of Tevinter swear words, cursing Ashkaari to death and hell and back.

He grabbed the arrows from his back and flung it at Ashkaari. “So what – all this while, while you were teaching me that’s what you thought of me? You thought I was _weak_?”

“I don’t think it’s your role to be a fighter!”

“Fuck your roles! Fuck your Qun!” And then Taashath raged like the bloody child he was, swearing up and down and picking up his own arrows just to throw it at Ashkaari again. Ashkaari let him, for his own anger drained as quickly as it burst, and he knew Taashath’s rage wore itself out as quickly as a pig-iron blade.

“I admit – okay I’m not really that good with a bow. But I’m trying, aren’t I – and I can swing a sword too – again admittedly not that good either, but that’s what a shield for, isn’t it? I might not be good with it, but that’s your fault, because all your shields are bloody heavy, and not everyone’s got the kind of muscle that you’ve got, but I am good with… With…” Taashath paused, gave him a bewildered look and finally realized he had exhausted all his choices.

In the silence that ensued Ashkaari longed to say ‘I told you so’. But he knew it would send the elf into another rage. At length, the anger drained out of Taashath, and he gave Ashkaari a weak reconciliatory smile and a sigh.

“I’m… Not really good with any of weapon, am I?”

“No, you aren’t.”

“You don’t have to say it like _that_.”

“Maybe you prefer some tactful Orlesian phrase?” He recited an insult.

“What’s that mean?” Taashath said.

“It means ‘the chevalier that fights like a dancer’. And it doesn’t sound that bad, but if you know anything at all about their fighting style, it means you’re a really sad sight.”

Ashkaari waited as Taashath worked out all his emotions: his face was an open book of all his thoughts. Anger, denial, then finally a sort of weary surrender. And then he looked at Ashkaari for the longest moment, weighing something in his mind heavier than words.

At last, he said, “Alright, I’ll admit you’re right. I am a pretty shitty fighter. But listen, are there any caves around here? Don’t need to be fancy or anything, but a cave.”

Ashkaari thought of the little nook on a ledge he knew of, which he’d wanted Taashath to find on his own as part of their lesson. “Eh…”

“Just trust me, alright? I followed you this far, you could return the favor.” The unspoken thought of course, was that it’d taken Taas a lot more courage to follow Ashkaari this far out without an escape plan in check. Decision made, Ashi nodded and guided him up the rocky ledge they were on. They scaled two more under his direction before they found the little crack, hidden behind a sparse wall of ghoul’s beard. In the light of sun-down, the cave was not lit well, and its further recesses were shrouded with darkness. Taashath took the lead and walked deeper into the cave.

“Where are you going? The cave’s deep, and we don’t have any torches.”

“Just come, alright?”

Ashkaari followed him, and as they went down the slightly winding path of the cave, all the illumination from the cave entrance drained away, leaving only the slight blueish glow of deep mushrooms from deeper in the cave. He stopped only when he ran into Taashath, and was nearly bowled over by him.

“Why are we so deep in the cave? Do you know it?” He asked.

“No. Listen, you know I trust you, don’t you?”

“Unconditionally.” He couldn’t keep the smug tone out of his voice.

“Ass. But, yes. I know you’re… Worried about me. About the hunt.” It was slightly disconcerting, hearing Taashath’s voice but not seeing him, his voice echoed off the cave walls.  “And yes, I’m probably going to be pathetically helpless in the hunt, but you don’t have to worry about me. Well, not that worried, at least.”

“And the reason I shouldn’t be worried lies in this cave you didn’t know of until a moment ago, does it?” He said, amused.

“No. Stop fidgeting. Step back a little.”

“Alright, alright, don’t hurt yourself pulling a sword out of thin air.” He teased.

Ashkaari was still blind, and heard only a deep breath from Taashath.

“The reason you don’t have to worry… Is this.”

Light. White, blinding light that filled every inch of the cave – and Ashkaari’s hands immediately went to the dagger he always kept on his side. To slaughter game, and to guard against this, whatever it was, because the light came so quickly and so sharply that he was still half-blinded by it when he swung his sword arm out.

“What the hell – Taas!? What’s that?”

“Stop moving around, damn you. You’re going to cut me!”

He paused and squinted, but it was no good, he couldn’t see anything except the light, now receding into warm colors— and with the spots in his vision he couldn’t make out what he was seeing---

“Taas? What are you holding? _Vashedan,_ you’re a—“

“A shit-eaten maggot-worm of a mage, yeah. Can you put the knife down now? It makes me nervous when people point strange things at me.”

“You’re a fucking _Saarebas_?” He spat the word out, hated even the way it tasted in his mouth. Tales he’d heard flashed through his mind: of Saarebas who brought death and destruction to whole settlements, plague and disease and demons that wander the countryside long after the village is gone. Of Saarebas he’d seen passing their settlement, chained like cows, breath like sour vapor through their heavy masks, and yet still menacing to an eight-year-old Ashkaari.

“I’m a _mage_.” Taas insisted. “And nothing in your culture is going to convince me otherwise. I am no less than anyone just because I’m one. In fact, I’m _more_.”

“Spoken like a true Vint,” Ashi snarled. He withdrew his sword arm, but only because he knew instinctively that Taashath would not hurt him – that it was not to hurt him that he led him to this cave but to hide. Still, he drew back, felt revolted at the sight – no, at the very knowledge that Taashath was a Saarebas, a bloody demon summoner of all things.

He backed away, wanting nothing but the glorious sunlight outside.

“Oh no, you don’t.”

His back hit a wall that shouldn’t be there, a force as solid as any strong brick wall, with the exception that this one tugged the hair on his head towards it almost imperceptibly, and his skin broke out in goosebumps.

“You’re not going to leave before we talk this out. I know you, Ashkaari. You walk out right now, you’ll spend weeks holed up somewhere thinking this through about questions you could answer if you’d just ask me now.”

“And this is how you convinced me? By keeping me here against my will?” He snapped, his voice unnaturally amplified in the confined space. There was an uncertain pause, but Taas was not deterred.

“Yes, if the alternative is you sulking like a little spanked nug for weeks. This isn’t any worse than you grabbing me or pushing me around.”

“Or,” Ashkaari proposed. “I could kill you and leave.”

There was another pause, and Ashkaari immediately regretted his words when he heard Taashath’s voice waver. “You would really do that?”

The thought revolted him, turned his stomach. “Of course not!”

“Then don’t say shit like that, idiot! What _is_ the problem? I’m not even that good a mage – you could probably break my barrier with a few punches anyway. You don’t need to be afraid.”

Ashkaari bristled at the suggestion that he feared, but just to be sure, he elbowed the barrier – hard. He felt it give way, letting his elbow through before snapping back shut to push his arm back. Taas was right, the thing would not hold against a fist.

“You see? So can you please not run about like a headless nug?” Taas pleaded.

“Stop it with the nug references already!”

“I – sorry. You know I’m nervous. I just want to talk.”

Ashkaari blew out a breath, but he knew in his heart that there was no way out of this. If Taas wanted to talk he would dog Ashkaari for days with food and books and annoying nicknames until he got his way, magic or no magic – and did Ashkaari really wanted to leave anyway, his last thought of his friend as a voice in a dark cave? For Taas was his friend, even given this new… Development.

“Alright. Fine. Your way then. What do you want to talk about?”

“Um– “Given what he wanted, Taas was lost for words. “I don’t know. I didn’t really think this through. Let’s see – I’m still the same person, please don’t tell anyone, please don’t put me in chains, and please don’t cut my throat?”

“Murder, Taas. Really?”

“You did just threatened to kill me a moment ago,” He pointed out.

It was shaping out to be a trying day. “I – Yes, I’m sorry. I spoke without turn.”

“Apology accepted. You will still owe me for it. Now ask, I know you’re burning with questions. I can practically see your nostrils flaring with curiosity.”

He was indeed, now that he didn’t burn so much from the betrayal. Too many questions came to mind: How could Taashath have kept this from him? How could he not? How many times had someone pushed him, and he’d thought of immolating them with magefire? Had he ever thought of turning that magic on Ashkaari – when they argued or fought or back when he hated Ashkaari for his existence? Would he, in the future? What scares him? What breaks him? What is Ashkaari to do if Taashath were to be possessed by a demon? What was the best way to kill him?

Ashkaari stilled his tongue for these, even though those were at the foremost of his mind. He knew, instinctively, that in many ways Taashath depended on this. A wrong word now, and he could hurt Taas beyond forgiveness, beyond repair, and he would retreat to the way he’d been, mistrustful and volatile.

So instead, he said, “Think you can make dragon sculptures?”

“Can I what?” Taashath echoed, incredulous.

“Dragon sculptures. Think about it. Mage-ice, it doesn’t melt unless you want it to, yeah? So you shape it, freeze it, like an ornament. It would be _pretty_.”

“I… I suppose I could. If I applied myself. But I’ve never seen a dragon before, so it might be deformed.”

“Just get the horns right. It’s all that matters.”

“Are you serious?” Taas asked, voice a pitch higher. The magefire fizzled out in his hands. “I tell you the biggest secret of my life and you ask me if I can make dragons with it?”

Ashkaari sighed – he should have known tact would be lost on the elf. “I’m trying to tell you that nothing has changed, Taashath. You’re going to give me all your dessert – and I mean _all of it_ – for a week, and we’re going to forget about this, alright? Now will you please come over here? I can’t see you for shit.”

After a long pause, he heard Taashath making his way over, his soft shoe soles scrapping the pebbled cave floor. He felt the barrier melting away behind him, and then the elf’s presence, close enough to touch. Ashkaari pulled Taashath to him, wrapped his arms around him, and buried his nose in Taas’ hair. He smelt the same as ever – of exotic woodsmoke that Ashi could never place – and now he knew what fire made that perpetual smell. The elf made a sound very suspiciously like sniffing.

With that, Ashkaari felt the burden of the unasked questions fell away. He knew then, as he felt Taashath’s slender arms shyly creeping up to hold him back, that it did not matter whether they were answered or not. It did not matter that Taas might one day be reduced to a screeching demon from the tale-weaver’s stories, nor that he was Saarebas, for these facts took away nothing and gave nothing more to Taashath. He simply was, and emotions rose in Ashkaari that sang and shook, for which he had no words.

He tightened his hold on Taashath. He thought of his earlier threat against Taas, and said fiercely, “I could never. I would never. I’m sorry, Taas.”

Taas said nothing, for truths did not need echoing, and they both knew of what he spoke of. Taashath gave him an answering squeeze, and together they scrambled out of the cave and went home. 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've updated the warning labels with graphic violence and underaged labels! I'm not sure if two teenagers going at it counts as underaged anything, but let's be on the safe side, yeah? Anyway, now that I've drafted out the rest of the chapters I know for sure what will be in them, so up we go!
> 
> Also, a warning/spoiler (which I will repost in the next chapter):  
> Their relationship gets pretty heavy and dark, in an 'inexperienced experiments with SM / wtf kids NO NO DON'T DO THAT' way. So if the thought of them fumbling about with household objects in a potentially dangerous way disturbs you, it might be a good idea to skip the next chapter. I've grouped most of the sex-related stuff in one chapter for this reason, so you can skip right by without missing much. (Also, I'm kind of inexperienced with actually sexy sex scenes so you might be saving yourself from pain in more ways than one). 
> 
> That's all, sorry for the super long note. Feedback super appreciated, as always! :D


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains:  
> \- weird as hell relationship dynamics  
> \- weird as hell sex that is all about mind games  
> \- weird as hell everything  
> \- kids who have NO idea what they're doing, doing each other
> 
> Skip chapter if:  
> \- you only wants the fluff and not the weird emotional baggage  
> \- some of this irks you

Soon after that, the Imekari no longer wondered whether theirs was a sexual relationship, for they were having enough sex that word of it had even travelled – embarrassingly – to the Tamassrans. Even pressed, Ashkaari would not be able to say exactly how it began, or name their first time together. All he knew was that towards the end of fade-Winter, they were always brushing against one another, using the flimsiest of excuses to press skin to skin. It did not matter what they were doing – fighting, hunting, cleaning outhouses – every nerve in Ashkaari’s body felt like they were stolen from Taashath’s body, and so longed dearly for it.

Taashath of course, had no such patience, even if he did respected Ashkaari’s reluctance. “It’s just sex. It’s not as if the whole world isn’t doing it. I can’t even be bred. I checked.” He’d grouse, whatever _that_ meant.

It did make Ashkaari incredibly jealous – because he wasn’t blind, and the rest of the Imekari certainly weren’t blind either. He could see that Taashath was beautiful, all flawlessly freckled skin and sinuous movements that begged you to hold him down and mark him with your teeth. As Taas’ nature calmed and changed – or calm enough for Taas, which meant no one’s teeth got knocked loose – so did the perception of the Imekari.

Was it any wonder that he would be accepted? Whether Ashkaari liked it or not, in some ways Taashath was a better Qunari than him. He was brash and loud and quick to anger, stoic in the face of suffering if he couldn’t punch your lights out, and even if he hadn’t yet internalized the Qun, it was obvious to anyone that once he accepted it he would be no different than their horned, vitaar-laden brethren. Ashkaari did not know which he was more jealous of: the way some of the boys looked at Taas, or that socially, they would more readily accept Taashath than him.

Yet it was not what he felt he should have, even if every day the urge to possess Taashath raged in him, to claim him so that no one else could take him away. Taashath and his friendship, yes – as his brother, as his _kadan_ – but the road Taashath wanted to take them down opened up… Things, confusing and could not be easily understood, and so Ashkaari refused.

He translated that jealousy to avoidance, and spent a lot of time at Besrathari’s hut instead. Besra was back from an assignment in a settlement at Seheron, and he had many tales to tell an eager listener. Tales of spies and intrigue and covert warfare, of superiors who become Tal-Vashoth, of bad Vints and not-so-bad Vints and all the people caught between. With Besra back, he took to spending his free time in Besra’s home. Besra did not mind company: it was a relief to be accompanied by people who could not kill him even if they wanted to.

For Taashath’s part, he endured all this with a sour look, but he did lay off enough that Ashkaari took to accompanying him again.

On one occasion, Taashath was to hunt him like a rabbit, chasing him down and following him everywhere with a grin that said: we’re about to _do_ things, and Ashkaari ended up holing himself into their armory, barring the door from the inside.

“Go away, you little ball-worm!” He yelled. “You’re harassing me!”

“You’ve found the perfect secluded spot already, don’t be so cruel as to lock me out from the fun!” Taas returned.

“No!”

“Come on, my dick’s about to fall off as it is—“

That was when a Tamassaran poked her head through the corner and sternly asked, “What was about to fall off, Taashath?”

“Shit.”

“Perhaps we will arrange for a trip to the healer for you. See to this malady of yours.”

It amused Ashi, the thought of Taas being pawed at clinically by some whey-faced healer, Taas who probably couldn’t get off unless he was swearing at your mother while you were doing him.

Taashath hurriedly apologize to Tama and fled, and that was the end of that for that day, but not for his crusade.

-

Eventually Ashkaari accepted it – that they were going to do this – despite all his fears, all his worries of bleeding or tearing or crying or magically-conjured fire or whatever it is sex with someone you cared about was going to entail.

In a way, he had to, because Taashath’s efforts - and there were many, including ambushing him in nothing but his smallclothes so that they were already brawling before Ashkaari realized his opponent seemed unnaturally preoccupied with something above the knees – began to wane, and Taas seemed to withdraw into himself.

That was when Ashkaari realized that for all Taas dismissiveness of it, he needed this too. Sex to them, was much more complex than the pursuit of pleasure. It was no accident that Taas pursuit increased in ferocity after the episode in the mountains – Taashath was likely trying to bind Ashkaari to him in the only way he knew how, to affirm for himself that Ashkaari would accept him, even now, even knowing.

So they began, and Ashkaari’s memories of the first few times was that there was indeed a lot of bleeding and tearing and crying and one burnt-out tree husk on the southern riverbank, its bark scarred by the sight of them fumbling about the riverside. In time Ashkaari finally convinced Taas that this was not what sex was about: that it shouldn’t be a violent insistence that they fucked all the time, that it was not less when Ashi refuses. That if Ashkaari wanted only his mouth or his hands on him, it did not mean that it was lesser, that it did not mean that he wanted or cared for Taashath any less.

It was hard won, that understanding, because you could only ever slip in a word here or there with Taashath before he’d grow discontent and try to distract you with sex. In awkward, timid phrases Ashkaari had to explain to him that it wasn’t a contest, and the prize was not Ashkaari’s affection.

That, and Ashkaari discovered that Taashath was a right kinky bastard too. He showed up one day in the animal pens where Ashkaari had been raking muck, holding a length of rope that they used to corral off pregnant animals.

“I want you to tie me up,” He announced, and lord was that hard work convincing him that he was certainly not ready for that. Hell, _Ashkaari_ was not ready for that – the thought of it was like a scene from a nightmare. Taashath, wiggling like an impatient eel for it to begin. He, big fingers fumbling with the ropes and tying all the wrong knots and the both of them strung up and stranded in 20 feet of stolen rope.

Not to mention, fantasies were nice and all, but if he did tie Taashath down in any way, he’d end up burning a forest down. The one time – _the one time_ – Ashkaari had given in to the kinky elf and let him dripped candlewax on Ashkaari, they’d quickly realized that it was the wrong sort of wax and this kind would not come off. They’d spent the rest of the night unsuccessfully scraping it off, and then Taashath’s second brilliant idea:

“Don’t worry. Let’s use magefire. Wax melts, doesn’t it? It’ll solve everything.”

Like _shit_ it does. It was mortifying – trying to explain to Tama what those raw patches of skin on his back was all about.    

-

By first-spring, Taashath had calmed down enough that it was good. They fumbled, experimented, and worked themselves through whatever new demand Taas had conjured up. They were more fun than not, and if Taashath was a right kinky bastard at least it was downright funny when his requests backfired and blew up in his face.

“Piss on me,” Taas had demanded.

“Piss off.” He’d shot back, but relented, and the subsequent look of horror on Taashath’s face when they did get down to it was worth the indignity of whipping out his dick for such an unsanitary purpose. That was what elves who snuck out and eavesdrop on the healers’ gossip deserved.

The unspoken knowledge though, was that all of these experiments were for Taashath’s sake – that he needed the whirlwind of schemes and dirty kinky ideas to mask what it was that they were actually doing. That he does not like thinking of the underlying reason for all of it – or of the fact that sometimes it all seemed an elaborate arrangement so that at the end of it all, he may have an excuse to cling tightly to Ashkaari and pretend he was just catching his breath.

For Ashkaari, their secret was that he liked these things that they do.

That despite all of them being Taashath’s ideas, it was he who grew to like them. The secret knowledge that when their sex was so rough that Taas cried, it’s Ashkaari who spurred them on, whose dick grew thicker and harder the more Taashath unraveled, whose release was greater when Taashath screamed. They did not acknowledge, for instance, that when Taashath bled, Ashi’s guilt was mixed with a little smile of satisfaction.

Some guilts were Ashkaari’s own burden. The knowledge, for instance, that he would become jealous and angry over Taashath’s increasing acceptance among the Qunari. That when he saw Taashath shyly accepting new friends, when he saw him laughing with Dath and trading jokes, Ashkaari unconsciously punished him with their sex. He would go on longer than he should, pretends he doesn’t hear the first few times Taas tells him to slow down, bite him hard enough to draw blood so that hopefully, _hopefully_ Taashath would realize that only he and he alone could give him this.

Another burden: the knowledge that there are many reasons he began this part of their relationship, and one of it was that he wanted Taashath to get this only from him, for life without him to be unimaginable for Taashath. These secrets reeked of possession, of unwanted desires to own rather than to care that no amount of poring over the Qun could fix. It was another thing for which Ashkaari had to question himself, added to a long list of questions that grew quickly beyond the scope of what Tama and Besra - so long the end-all to his whys - could answer.

When things were calmer, and emotion did not drive their every interaction, it was still the simpler things that Ashkaari liked best.

Skipping curfew, for example, and lying with Taashath on the southern plains, gazing at stars. Sometimes it was sexual, sometimes it wasn’t. Sometimes Taashath laid on him while Ashkaari stargazed, wondering who else was out there looking at the same constellations as they were. Of whether there were dragons roosting out there under the same skies, or if there was some other Qunari in Par Vollen too, who were looking at the stars and thinking of escaping, of travelling far away from the Qun with a Saarebas in their arms.

Sometimes Taashath rode him, and he sees Taas’ beautiful hair framed by moonlight, almost like coal in the night, and wonders: How did he become so lucky? Why had Taashath chose him, and how can he make Taashath choose him again? Was the Chantry’s Maker true, and did it gift him with this – this beautiful sight that he’s sure he will remember for the rest of his life? How does he put these in words – what languages are there? – that he can tell Taashath? And why the fuck was he thinking these ridiculous thoughts?

Mostly though these nights were silent, because Taashath treasured the times when the silence was not a thing to bear. Ashkaari cherished the silence too. For times like this, he did not need to be the one who thinks – there is no ulterior motive for their being together, no emotional dependency, and no complicated power play that neither of them truly understood. There was only the knowledge that they exist in the now, and when morning comes they’ll be different people again.

\--

Taashath decided it was time for the whole world to know they were fucking.

It was not enough that they’d done it against every tree and rock big enough to support their weight this side of Par Vollen. It won’t be enough, even if you couldn’t traipse across the countryside without stepping on a spot where they’d once traded bodily fluids.

What Taashath wanted, was for all of their dorm to know in no uncertain terms that Ashkaari was his, and anyone who laid a paw on him was going to suffer the wrath of an ex-Tevinter kitchen servant whose skill included the skinning and fileting of Dracolisks.

Never mind that sometimes he wondered – what would it be like to be squished up against the triplets? Between Dath and Ashkaari? Maybe that blonde Viddathari with the fantastic ass, even – the point was, these were thoughts. No different than the wild imaginings of a storyteller. And anyway, from the dirty shit Ashkaari would say to him sometimes he certainly wasn’t the only one with these thoughts. The fact was: Ashkaari was his, and for as long as his selfish, grubby little hands could hold onto Ashi, the rest of the world had better know it too.

He chose one of those days where it seemed Ashkaari would worry himself into an early grave if he’d let him. They were on melee, practicing ways to hit the various weak spots of monsters they might encounter in the Great Hunt with straw-made monsters that were of such vague shape they could be anything four-legged.

All day long, Ashkaari had breathed down his neck. He’d come over and correct Taashath on some minor detail – the way he holds his sword, the way he jabs it instead of slash – and fret over Taas’ emotional state.

“Do not throw the sword at the instructor,” He warned. “Unlike Six-legged Al-Tuma, this guy’s known for his harsh punishments.”

“Yes, mother.” He clucked back.

“And don’t stab at the dummy with this sword. This one isn’t made for stabbing. Feel the heft of it? You want to put your weight into the hilt and hit hard.”

Taas gave him a sly smile, whispering softly. “As if I would need to use a sword out there. Maman taught me all the ways you could burn—“

“Shut up, idiot!” Ashkaari hissed, so loud that a few head turns to stare at them. “Just – shut up, alright?”

Taashath did. He knew how Ashkaari felt about his magic – virtually from the day he’d told him, Ashi had done his utmost to pretend it never happened. Which was fine, really. A person likes it when they’re not treated differently. But it was one thing to not be treated differently and another thing to live in denial, and he didn’t like that even in the darkest corners and the quietest creek, he wasn’t allowed to allude to his magic without Ashkaari visibly angering.

It wasn’t as if he was some grand Tevinter blood mage hiding out in the open. He was just a kitchen boy who could summon a few spells and walk in supernatural quietness when he wanted to. And he knew this, even if he liked to pretend he was some dark mysterious elf with a past around the dormitory. Ashkaari knew this too, but to him being Saarebas meant more than it did to Taashath.

So Taashath let him be, watching from afar as Ashkaari took all his frustrations out on the straw-beast. He charged at it, bashing it about, and then bashing his sparring partners about until they threw their shields away in frustration.

“Fucking Ashkaari’s playing at being Arishok today!” One yelled out at those waiting to take their turn on the training grounds. “Best to keep away unless you want to visit the healer for all the wrong reasons!”

By the time the sun set, Ashkaari had worked himself up into a growling ball of anger. He snapped and grumped at anyone he passed by in the hallways, preoccupied with whatever thoughts he was punishing in his head. Taashath avoided him, waiting until night came and Ashkaari curled into his pallet for sleep.

The moment Taashath felt enough time had pass for Ashkaari to be groggy with sleep, he crawled under Ashi’s blankets. It was scant protection – the blanket did not cover much of Ashkaari, and on their combined bulk the blanket was less than a towel.

“What—Ugh, Taas, get off me.” He groaned, eyes squinting in the darkness.

“Nope.” He pawed at the drawstrings of Ashi’s pants, his meaning clear.

“I’m not in the mood. _We’re_ not in the mood.” Ashi added meaningfully, glancing at the rest of the Imekari on their pallets, lining down their bed hall. He jiggled his thigh, trying to dislodge its unwanted rider.

“Don’t worry, we shan’t scar any little ones. They’re all down the other side of the hall anyway – well, not unless you start shouting.” He whispered back, freeing Ashi’s cock and stroking it for consent. Like a well-trained beast it reared its sleepy head, and Ashi squirmed in protest.

“Oh, for—Vashe!”

Taashath hushed him by nuzzling his cock, hefting its familiar weight in his palms. Usually, he would take his time with it, licking it, stabbing his tongue at those little spots that he knew would make Ashi groan and curse while he worked his own jaw in preparation for taking it down his throat. None of that today – he swallowed it down without foreplay, wincing when it went all the way it could – and hum, working Ashkaari with the muscle of his throat, all long since trained in their frequent forays out in the forest.

Ashkaari wouldn’t cooperate, tugging at his hair to get him to let up, even as he mouthed soft Qunlat curses under his breath. Ashi’s cock grew in his mouth, veins pushing at Taas’ tongue, and he pushed back as best he could without losing pace. His hands fumbled at the drawstrings of his own pants, a much easier task than Ashi’s because they’d already been loosen beforehand, and stroked himself.

Then he held Ashkaari’s hips down. With most of his body curled up beneath the blanket, he must have looked like a great hump-backed beast here to suck Ashkaari’s brains out of his hips to the others, and he chuckled at the mental image and nearly choked.

He gave Ashi his favorite thing instead. He withdrew from Ashi’s cock, peeled back his lips, and gently, carefully – grazed him with his teeth. Just the barest amount of pain that might douse another’s passion – but with Ashkaari, it was like he’d been hit by lightning. His hips arched, and he cried out before he silenced it with one hand. He gathered enough willpower to say, “More.”

Taashath obliged. He nibbled and nipped his way to the head and peeled back the loose skin with his teeth. With his hand he massaged Ashkaari’s balls, rolling, then pressing – again close enough to hurt that it drove Ashi wild. Like being kicked in the defresnim, Ashkaari had complained – but oh, oh, _oh_ did he like it.

Taashath gave Ashi’s cock one last lick, and just as abruptly as he began, he stopped.

“The hell—“ Ashkaari opened one eye to glare at him. “Finish it, you fucker. You started this.”

“Nope.”

Ashi cursed, then angrily grabbed his own member, obviously intent on jerking himself to completion. Taashath swatted his hand away and said, “Don’t touch that, it’s mine.”

“It can bloody well be yours if it falls off thanks to you.” He snarled.

“Will it? Pity, it’s a pretty cock.”

“Take it then. Keep it in a fucking jar, you cocktease.”

Taashath chuckled, and climbed back up onto him. All these while their voices had been steadily growing louder, and it’d woken up the Qunari closest to them. Most were usually heavy-sleepers, but even the heaviest sleepers couldn’t have missed Ashkaari’s groans and curses. A boy beating off in these halls were a frequent thing – more often than not you’d hear the quiet grunts and moans from someone in the next pallet, hunched over in their blanket. Sometimes there were couplings. There was a pair about halfway down the hall who every other night appeared as a very fat Qunari, the two of them wrapped up in a single large blanket that rocked back and forth in a telltale way.

But this? Ashkaari and the elven troublemaker? This was new.

Taashath grabbed him by the horns, which had grown straight and out without showing any signs of curling or bending. It made him look like a big candlestick with its tips broken off, and they made excellent leverage.

“What are you doing?” Ashi hissed. “Are you even oiled?”

“Ashi? Shut up.”

Then he lined their cocks up and rocked against him.

“Oh, fuckkkkkkk.” Ashkaari panted, fingers clenching and unclenching in the bedroll until he gave up, and cooperated with Taas. He took hold of Taas waist, and those big hands moved him to a rhythm his liked. Both of them, slick by sweat and other things – dancing and pressing against each other. Dueling, almost, with Taashath aggressively thrusting against Ashkaari.

He could hear the evidence of Ashi’s pleasure – those little sighs, hisses that meant Ashi was holding back. If they’d been outside, Taashath would be talking a mile a minute now too, head lowered to Ashi’s sensitive ears, nibbling and saying the filthiest things to him. He did so now, but only to tell him, “ _Listen._ See how they watch.”

Ashkaari cracked open his eyes with a protesting groan, eyes locked on Taas with confusion. Taashath could see the great ox’s mind fumbling about – and just to make it that much hard to think, he repositioned himself with those great horns as support, clenching the muscles of his thighs and flexed against him.

Ashkaari’s ears twitched as if listening was some great effort and his eyes widened when he did hear. All around them, there were familiar sighs and groans from the other boys’ pallets, and though Taashath kept his eyes on Ashkaari he could hear enough to picture them behind him, hands fumbling in the darkness, breath fogging in the air as they watch Ashkaari’s thighs flexing around his ass.

He nibbled Ashi’s ear and his warm breath made him shiver, his hand encircled around their cocks, stroking them in tandem. “This is all for you. Every sigh, every moan. Tonight they’d all be looking at me and wish they were riding you instead.”

“No, it’s you—“ Ashkaari began to protest, but Taas silenced him with a sharp nip.

“Would Ashkaari’s big hands redden their ass as it does mine? Would his claws leave marks on their thighs when he’s excited, would he scratch them and mark them as his?” He let the words sink in, watching as Ashi’s eyes glazed over with pleasure. And every time it seemed Ashkaari was about to drop off into unhearing bliss he would thrust roughly against him – too painful for pleasure – and bring him back into Taas’ words again.

“What would it be like, servicing that great, big cock? Having it rub against their thighs, having it in them? Would it hurt, would it feel full – too full – so much pleasure that it’d all be worth it? Would they crave it? Would they want to?” He let his teeth graze Ashkaari’s nipple – knew he liked it only when it hurt – and tugged. “The answer is _yes_.”

He lowered himself then – nudged Ashkaari, who was barely sentient enough to keep his own cock steady as he lowered himself onto it. His thighs shook with the strain, with the pain that was always there. He let himself go, let himself be pulled down and let his ass clench with the hurt. It was a good hurt, and there would be more, and it would make it better anyway.

“You didn’t have to do this, Taas.” Ashkaari whispered, those fingers pressing at the muscle of his thighs, soothing them.

“Yes, I do. I know you want them to see.”

It felt like forever before he slid all the way to the base, the whole process a familiar routine of pain, of muscles trying to cope with their invader. His breath hitching – like apprehension, like fear almost – barely remembering to breathe, crying out from a mix of pleasure and pain. And then finally his reward with a sigh – pressed completely against Ashkaari, full of him.

 “I wanted you to see. See them want you, Ashkaari. Wanting to be you, wanting to be with you – you are _wanted_.”

“Yes, yes, goddamit Taas, move!”

“Gladly.”

He ended all his speeches and began a new sort of conversation instead, one with only their bodies speaking. He surrendered all control to Ashkaari, who moved him and angled him, rutting against him all the while.

He relaxed himself – surrendering even his mind – so that he was nothing, less than nothing, a receptacle for Ashkaari to empty himself into. He let himself be carried away by the rumble in Ashkaari’s chest as he swore and growled in time to their movements, clenching his own muscles in accompaniment.

Ashkaari thrusted into him, pulling his cock almost all the way out before slamming into him. Tonight, his eyes were trained not on Taashath but on the people around them. Ashkaari watched them as he fucked into Taas, as he lost all thought of gentleness and carefulness, as he moved in tandem to their self-pleasuring. He locked eyes with someone behind Taashath, and Taas does not bring him back. He enjoyed this – to be used, his body emptied of everything except the rhythm of pain/pleasure, of being an object without losing his ability to un-become that object.

When Ashkaari’s rhythm faltered, he grabbed Ashi’s horns once again, thrusting back as hard as Ashkaari, giving him back everything he was given. He watched Ashkaari’s eyes dilate, still trained on someone behind him – then someone else, then someone else – watched him distill their pleasure, losing himself in their reflection. Felt him squeezed him harder, big hands turning into claws in earnest. He scratched Taashath as he would like to scratch them, his a form of surrender too – not caring if Taas bleeds, not caring if he tears.

Taashath cried out, Ashkaari’s name a chant on his lips. He claws at Ashi’s back, ripping skin, making scars, dug viciously into wounds and felt Ashkaari’s cock jerk.

“Harder, you accursed piece of shit. Harder, harder!” He cried.

His words snapped Ashkaari out of his reverie, and he swung his gaze back to Taas. It hardly mattered: their part of the room was so heavy with the sound of pants, the smell of sex so heavy, they didn’t need to see them to feel them. The room was with them, every one of them – lusting, wanting, desiring them – and it was his ass that Ashi was ripping into.

“Mine,” Ashi growled, claws pressing down into soft flesh again, as they moved together for the final lap, their movements contradictory and almost competitive. He bites Taas, rips into him, slam into him so hard that it’s his hips that bruises him – words, cries, degenerating into curses in Qunlat.

“Bloody, fucking – “And then he was coming, heat filling Taashath to the core. Ashi’s hands come down hard on Taas’ cock, yanking it furiously, demanding – and then Taashath joined him with a cry, spurting all over his chest.

He crashed with the wave of pleasure, dropping himself into his drippings and holding Ashkaari tightly. It racked his body, left it breathless, boneless, and useless.

It was a long while before either of them could speak. They laid there, wet and sticky and sweaty, listening to the others find their own completions. Ashkaari was the first to recover.

“So… Maraas looks pretty happy.”

“Why?”

“Someone grabbed him halfway and started blowing him.”

“Shit. Lucky bastard.”

“Not as lucky as I was,” Ashkaari nudged him, made him move up so that he could wrap his arm around Taas better. “I had an elf riding me and everything. Tightest ass ever. Can’t top that.”

“Can’t imagine why, with the kind of cock he’s been taking.”

Ashkaari chuckled, squeezed him on the side. “Thank you for that. I don’t understand why I needed that, but I do.”

Taas smiled. His head was full of complicated thoughts, on how Ashkaari might have felt like so, and so. But it wasn’t the time for such convoluted debates, and in any case he was much too tired.

Instead, he said, “Now hopefully, you won’t drag me off by the ear every time I so much as breathe on another Qunari.”

“Yeah. Maybe. No promises.” Another squeeze. “Stay with me tonight.”

“We’re going to have to wake up very early for me to crawl back to my pallet.”

“If you think Tama isn’t going to know what kind of trouble you’ve started, you’re mad as lice.” Ashkaari scoffed. “It isn’t going to make a whit of difference in your punishment.”

Then he said, again. “Stay.”

So Taashath did.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Psst, thanks for staying with me so far! And the anon who hunted me down on tumblr!)


	5. Chapter 5

That entire Spring, Ashkaari tutored a pacified Taashath on the things that every Imekari would know had they not been raised in some walled-off Tevinter courtyard.  For the most part, Taas went obediently along with these lessons, most of them related to survival in the wilderness, as the Great Hunt was more about being able to survive long enough to return home at all than to actually defeat the gurguts.

Surviving for a month took a lot in the harsh jungles of Par Vollen, dotted here and there with clearings that were either safe havens or treacherous swamps, with no way to know beforehand which was which. There were quicksand-like entrapments, covered by mud and roots that could suck grown men in and suffocate them, carefully maintained by the nearby trees that sought corpses for nutrients, and then to that list was added at least two dozen kinds of carnivorous, poisonous, or flatulence-inducing plants.

That wasn’t even speaking of the wild beasts, most of which were the survivors of many great hunts, and so were distilled into highly dangerous monsters that couldn’t be felled unless you knew how. It seemed to Taashath that there was no such thing as a simple beast in Par Vollen – there were no monsters that you could hack away with a knife and hoped it died. Everything involved a complicated process of avoidance and technique to even survive.

Mage, he might be, but as Ashkaari pointed out, magic would not keep his insides from falling out if he was gored by a Gurn.

So he learned, and when he was wild and stubborn Ashkaari would pacify him with affection. Sometimes Taashath resented that: that Ashkaari treated him often like an errant child, to be soothed with hugs and carefully chosen praises were he to misbehave. Ashkaari had a talent for playing people like instruments, he knew that much. Taashath had seen him manipulate his brethren into doing his work for him, coaxed treasured books out of the hands of fellow scholars, and played cunning tricks with the rosters when he was feeling lazy. But forewarned was not foretold, and when Ashkaari coaxed him into his tutelage, he had no idea how or if he should refuse.

So off they traipsed into forests and waddled through rivers. Everyone presumed they were off scarring the countryside with amorous acts, but Taashath spent most of his time trying to scar trees with arrows and running in treacherous rivers with rocks tied to his ankles. Stamina, the idiot ox had said it was for, but he’d be damned if it’d help him last longer on said ox.

On one such trips where he’d actually hit enough trees to make Ashkaari smile, he’d ask him, “We are actually trying to win this thing, aren’t we? That _is_ why we’re training so hard?”

“Are you kidding?” Ashi scoffed. “We’re barely this side of the river, and there’s still no guarantee we won’t drown. We’d have our hands full just trying to live off the land. Forget the Great Gurgut – there’s no way we could take it down without a team of three or four strongmen types.”

“We could get Dath to come with us.” He suggested. The apple-cheeked Qunari had avoided the topic of the great hunt as tenaciously as he avoided oratory classes, as if by sweating enough over the thought he wouldn’t have to go. “That’s three. And you’re pretty good with a broad-axe.”

Ashi just gave him a look, marking the next tree with his knife. “And have you flail about even more uselessly, having to hide your powers too? We would still be a two-man team, essentially.”

Taashath scowled fiercely, took aim, and shot the target with enough force that the trunk shook. He gave Ashkaari a satisfied smirk. “I can shoot well enough.”

“You can hit trees, maybe, but don’t forget the things we face will be moving and breathing poison on you. The Great Gurgut would maul us to pieces while you find a place to shoot its underbelly.”

“Fine.” He grouse, admitting defeat. He’d never seen this Great Gurgut thing before, but he’d seen from afar a group of Karataam members subduing a gurgut that had wandered into the settlement by mistake and saw a feast to be had. Even a normal one spanned a height taller than any Qunari could boast, towering three to four heads above Taashath, its thick limbs sinewy with muscle that had enough strength to dredge up earth with every strike. He had no idea what the leader of such creatures would be like, but he’d guess that for starters, it’d be much bigger.

“But if we do win, and I mean _if_ ,” He emphasized at Ashkaari’s groan. “We would be able to choose what path we take in life, won’t we?”

“Maybe,” Ashi hedged. “The thing is, like a lot of these stuff that’s sprung up since the original Qun stuff, it’s not really set in stone. That’s what the Imekari says, and for the most part it’s true. But think about it – these kids who successfully wrangle the Great Gurgut in the past, they’re mostly Antaam material, aren’t they? That’s what they’ll say they want to be too, and it’s no surprise that they’d put Imekari so skilled in fighting in the Antaam. I mean, what else are they going to do, make them bakers? So maybe it’s true that you’d definitely get into the Antaam if that’s what you want, but nobody knows for sure if they’d let you be a Darthrasi-farmer if that’s what you want to be.”

“So… What? You just win and yell out what you want to be?”

“No. There’s a celebratory feast after the slaughter, where all those who make it back in time feast on the flesh of the spoils. For the duration of the feast, the Imekari who succeed are considered temporary adults, and in theory, the people you sit with will be seen as your favored brethren.”

“In theory, huh?”

“Yeah, like I said, no Imekari who’s slaughtered a Great Gurgut has shown much interest in sitting with the Arigena.”

“And if you win?” Taashath prodded. “Who would you sit with?”

His knife marking three successive marks on the same tree. Ashikaari gave him a sly look. “If that’s your way of asking me what I want to do for the rest of my life, you’re not being very subtle, twig-toes.”

“I’m asking you what you want to do for the rest of your life,” He returned, baldly. “Subtlety wouldn’t get past your hide.” He let loose, and only one of three arrows found their mark. One flew at Ashi, and he swatted it away without ceremony. It landed on leaves rotten from a winter’s nap on the soggy ground.

“I want to join the Antaam. Maybe be a Bersaraad, or a Sten if I’m deserving. I hear the hornless Sten they’ve got now speaks in many tongues, and I can learn well enough.”

“Not the Ariqun? Become someone scholarly and stuffy. Stuffier, I mean,” He added with a smile. “You could be Ashikaari for real. Not just a nickname anymore.”

“Nah, too thinky.” He said easily, turning away quickly towards the settlement, but not before Taashath saw something flicker in those eyes. Ashkaari was a good liar, but he was not without his tells. “Let’s go home. We’ve done enough for the day,” Ashi said, and Taas knew for sure he was changing the subject. It was a full hour earlier than their usual time.

Taashath had never been one to dance around a subject, and definitely not after so many months around the blunt, tactless Qunari.

“You sure? Because it seems strange that a kid who’s got the Orlesian Pastry Manual and the 5th Cycle Guide for Antivan Aristocrats Negotiating County Politics stashed in his bedroll would prefer to swing a sword.”

“Strange but true,” Ashi said, forging ahead. He did this often, taking the lead and walking ahead so that Taashath could not easily gauge his expression. With his longer strides, he controlled their pace as much as he did his emotions.

“Don’t wheedle about, I didn’t take you to be worm-shit.”

“I can’t change my ambitions just because you don’t like them, Taashath. Be reasonable.”

“I’m not asking you to change them,” He challenged. “I’m asking you to tell me what they are.”

Ashkaari said nothing, charging straight ahead until they reached the river. Here they habitually washed themselves before returning to the dorms, cleaning themselves of mud or blood from scraps. Occasionally they’d have hunted some small prey, and they’d have to clean arrowheads and knives before they could go home. Rumors of them having sex in the great outdoors and a bloody knife would send out an alarming message, after all.

 “The Antaam are the only ones who travel.” Ashkaari said. And Taashath immediately understood. He knew of Ashkaari’s wanderlust – or rather, his insatiable curiousity about the world beyond the sea. One could tell, by the almost desperate way that Ashi devoured books on languages and geography and minor, useless things that every scrap of knowledge was to him some gateway to a world he might never get to see.

Taashath nodded his understanding, but Ashi wasn’t done.

“I mean, Besra and his Ben-Hasraath travels sometimes, but it’s almost always to Seheron. There aren’t nothing there but Vints and maybe-Vints and could-be-Vints. Then you’ve got the Arigena, and they do sometimes go to Rivaini and Thedas to trade. But I want more than that – I want to wander up and down the Anderfels and chart up all the frozen waterfalls. The Antaam are the only ones who go on long expeditions, and years and years off somewhere out there, even if it means killing as the Qun demands…” He swallowed. “It would be worth it.”

“And maybe disappear along the way, eh? Show up in Orlais and eat a trayful of petite cakes,” Taashath added jokingly, bumping him with a shoulder. The look Ashi gave him was one of genuine surprise – as if for all his brains he’d never considered such a notion.

“I wouldn’t do that. I mean, that’d be betraying the Qun. I’d be a Tal-Vashoth.”

“But _cakes_ , Ashi. The sweetest cakes the world’s ever tasted, and cheese that taste like despair.”

Ashkaari shook his head. “Not for the Qun, Taas. It wouldn’t be right.”

Taashath scoffed, but inside, he felt shaken at Ashkaari’s conviction. He went through the motions of ablution, but his thoughts were rattling about. Like Dath, he’d never truly thought about what he himself would do with his life under the Qun either. He’d always assumed that the Qunari would throw him back to the Kabethari well before he had to make any decision, and as for Ashkaari’s and his future – that had always been in the shadowy realms of what might be.

To hear that Ashkaari had it all mapped out, a life in the Antaam that would obviously exclude Taas, felt like a bucketful of cold water. Perhaps – if he was honest with himself, and it was painful to be such – he’d even entertain some childish notion that Ashkaari would leave the Qun to be with him, the two of them running off to the Port of Vashoth-Asala – off the southern coast where all the crazy, mercenary Tal-Vashoth had their own settlement – and then from there to whichever part of the world captured Ashkaari’s interest first. It was all very romantic tripe, and it was, he realized with a pang, really only that. Romantic garbage.

A shoulder bump pulled him out of his reverie.

“Stop thinking so hard. You’re making steam out of the river,” Ashkaari teased.  

“Drown yourself,” He snapped, but Ashkaari took his hand and squeezed it until it hurt and he had to glare at Ashi.

“Stop thinking so hard,” Ashi chided. “We’ll cross the desert when we come to it.”

“That’s not what you said when you told me 20 moves ahead of time that I was about to lose,” They’d played games of strategy before, fashioned crudely from foreign rules that Besra had imperfectly relayed. Imperfect or not, Ashkaari beat him soundly at every turn, and didn’t even have to change the rules once to do so.

In a quiet voice, Ashkaari said, “Yes well, we have a board full of soldiers that aren’t ours in this game.”

The sun hovered dangerously close to the horizon, and so they hurried towards the dorm to make it in time for dinner. Ashkaari always a step ahead, leading Taashath even when the grounds were harmless plains, and there were no treacherous plants or beasts to protect him from. And Taashath was glad, because just as he could not see Ashkaari’s face when they travelled like this, Ashkaari too could not see his. Shielded by Ashkaari’s shadow, his thoughts wandered, to faraway rivers and forests much like the ones they were leaving behind, where their futures might be set in water instead of stone.

\---

The sun beat on grey Qunari skin that shone almost white, covered as they were in a sheen of sweat. It was the sun of high-Summer, the first red sun of Summer that would outstay its welcome every day for a month. It would go on to shine past dusk, disappearing abruptly in the evening like a burning log smothered in water. Disappearing as abruptly for example, as a certain Viddathari.

In front of Ashkaari stood layers of Imekari, all standing to attention at the Karasaad’s words. There was a short speech in the abrupt, angry phrases of a departure ceremony, and soon this would be over and the Imekari would disperse towards the northern jungles. Behind them, the gates to their settlement would be ceremonially and literally closed, and in a month some but not all of them would be allowed back in.

Nervously, Ashkaari shifted from foot to foot, barely hearing the words spoken by the Karasaad. His pack was heavy even for him, canvas cloth sewn together by an inept hand and filled to the brim with enough tools, utensils, and weapons for two people. He saw Dath off in the distance, sweating beside a pair of Aqun-athlok, fierce twins who were apt fighters but whom needed a third camp-man to make up for their inadequacy with skinning their own hunts.

What he didn’t see, was Taashath, and that was making him nervous.

It wasn’t rare, of course, for Taashath to disappear on him. As they drew closer to the days of high-Summer, the elf had taken to practicing on his own in their training spot, since Ashkaari was otherwise occupied with preparing their material needs. Clothes needed to be obtained, or sewn, or mended – and Ashkaari had never been apt with these. Foodstuffs had to be requisitioned, weapons bartered for, whetstones chiseled, and Ashkaari had no time to do all these and hold Taashath’s hand while he fired his bow.

So with a promise extracted from Taashath that he would practice instead of laze off in the forest, and another promise to please, _please_ be careful, Ashkaari had relented and allowed Taas out of his sight.

It didn’t stop Ashkaari from clucking at him like a hen – at least, to hear Taashath put it – and more than once Ashkaari had arrived in their clearing, disconcerted by the smell of singed wood with Taas nowhere to be found. He knew Taas was practicing his magic more and more for the hunt to come, and it worried Ashkaari to the marrow to think of someone coming upon Taashath’s sessions, or worse – Taashath setting the trees on fire and burning to death in a forest fire. When he could steel himself to think of Taashath as a Saarebas at all.

Thus, Ashkaari’s only response was to hold on tighter to Taas at night, where they sometimes boldly shared a pallet in the dorms, and ignored the times Taas disappeared on him. This was not one of those times, however, and as the speech drew to an end, Ashkaari became worried in earnest that Taas had fled the hunt.

“Hey, ox-head!” Someone called out, just as the Karasaad’s speech ended. The crowd began to speak all at once. Genuine contenders were already moving outwards, while those who were here to pass the month fishing dawdled in groups to discuss their plans.

Ashkaari turned to look, and spotted a tall Qunari waving at him. A familiar figure clambered down from the Qunari’s back and raced towards him, shuffling in and out of visibility in the crowd. Taashath stopped, red-faced and beaming in front of him. He too, was covered with sweat, the beginnings of a sunburn creeping up a delicate neck.

“Sorry, I couldn’t see you what-with these throng of cows. Had to employ a ladder just to see you.”

Ashkaari looked up, saw the Qunari already blending into his chosen group. “I was starting to worry you’ve decided to go fishing somewhere else.” He threw a smaller pack at Taas, packed with only the lightest necessities. “Here’s yours. In case we get separated too.”

As Ashkaari had guessed, Taashath had shown up with nothing but his usual knapsack and bow. There was another addition that Ashi had never seen, a polished staff that looked almost like a quarterstaff, but was much too bumpy to actually be one.

“It’s a new weapon,” Taas grinned, seeing the direction of his gaze. “Figured I might get some melee in too.”

“Right.” It was obvious what it was. Fashioned crudely from Ironbark, he’d be surprised if it didn’t ‘help’ Taashath’s spells explode in his face. But it was much too late for that kind of argument, and anyway Taas would just break it in halves and shove it down Ashi’s throat.

He turned to the crowd instead, and saw the second wave of campers already moving out. These moved in all directions instead of heading in a single file towards the ash mountains. “Let’s go, then. I’ve got a nice place all mapped out where we can probably spend the entire Summer without too much trouble. It’s a grazing grown for the headless-Qavat, but this time of the year they’re all further west.”

“No one’s gonna be there, yeah? Sure?”

“Pretty. The lake there dries up in fade-Summer, so most groups will stick to the rivers.” With a grin at Taas, he said. “Ready for a few months out with some books and a few bottles of oil?”

Taas gave him a mock-scowl. “I hope you’re not suggesting you want to read while we’re fucking. I’m not ready for old age yet.”

“Nah, but I hope you’re okay with having wildlife spectators.”

Taashath merely grunted.

The crowd stirred for the third time, and another wave of campers lethargically move towards the outskirts. These ones should creep slowly, without enthusiasm – Ashkaari had often spied these processions in the past. Once these too were all gone, the ones left would be the ones who plan to cling to the edges of the settlement, to survive easily but without honor.

He did not exchange further words with Taashath. They’d travelled to and from the gentle surroundings of their settlement enough that their bodies were attuned to each other’s. As one, they cut northeast through the crowd. Heading, as Ashikaari hope to be, towards an uneventful adventure.

\--

Their first week was spent travelling, and so their campfires were weak and timid, for they cut through all sorts of grazing grounds for herbivores much less genteel than the Qavats. Wrapped up in thin, coarse blankets the color of dark mud, they huddled against trees to camouflage themselves against the beasts that could see in the night.

In the daylight, they crept forwards slowly, stopping at every clearing and every stream for Ashkaari to check the tracks. Ashi was no great hunter himself, and it took him a long time to reconcile the strange markings on the wet grounds with the stencils’ he’d seen in his books. Hooves on paper looked a hell lot of different from hooves in the wild. Sometimes, an entire herd would trample over the same ground, blending their footsteps into mush and you couldn’t know for sure whether they were beasts to be avoided at all costs, or if they would guide them to safe paths instead.

Taashath was impatient and often angry with their pace. “It’s just a black deer,” He’d say. “I say we run it down and roast it for dinner tonight.”

“That’s a grudge-deer, Taas. They’re known to gather in numbers when hunted, and maul their hunters to death at night.”

“Fucking Qunari and their crazy jungles. I’d much rather wade through the blood emporiums than here. Feel safer in a mite too.”

“Look on the bright side, at least our deers won’t sacrifice you to demons.”

“I’d be sure to thank my lucky stars – except wait, there are too many of even those in your skies, so I can’t find them.” Came the sour retort.

So they press onwards, cutting through swaths of untamed jungles that differed more and more from the books Ashkaari had read. He worried, and tempers grew so short that they’d bicker endlessly for a whole day before announcing a truce after a wearying silence. More and more too, he realized that he might have overestimated his ability to protect Taas. The jungle did not fall into the neat, compartmentalized information that he had, and though he adapt – that much he was good at, at least – some days he wished he’d persuaded Taashath to trust and travel with a larger group of campers instead.

And which he had to ask why? Why did it never occur to him to bring other people along? Taas, of course, Taas and his damnably prickly personality. Taas would likely brawl with their teammates before the first dusk. But no, more often it’d been Taashath’s suggestions to recruit others. Ashikaari was the one who refused. Pride then – some crazy need to reconcile the world of his books with the real world, or perhaps, the need to prove to himself that Taashath had made the right choice in trusting him.

When they were somewhere that Ashkaari was sure was reasonably safe, he’d give in to Taas desires. Huddled in the same bedroll for warmth, mud-blanket wrapped around them, he’d let Taashath exchange sex for warmth and comfort. It was not the price, but it was all Taashath knew. Everything had a price, the Vidatharri had often said. And this was him paying it over and over, to Ashi who would have given him these things for nothing.

More often however, they’d recreate the armory in the wilds. Taashath would pin the blanket to Ashi’s horns and make a makeshift tent out of it, and lit by their small campfire they’d read the books that Ashkaari had smuggled out for their journey. They were lightweight, leather-bound journals of the Par Vollen wilds, none of the exotic stuff from over-the-sea. But reading was more than the content, especially for Taashath who still didn’t know enough Qunlat to read properly. He only wanted the comfort of a familiar act, and Ashkaari only wanted to know more, to guard against some calamity-to-be in the wilds.

\--

In that first week itself, there’d be one of those.

They’d walked along a river for half a day before Ashkaari found a spot with shallow enough water to cross. The river was wide – almost five Qunaris laid across in width – and the water frothed by the banks. The spot he’d chosen was just a little away from where a waterfall connected the river above the cliff to theirs, and the roar of it was so loud that he had to shout at the top of his lungs just to be heard.

“You go ahead!” He yelled at Taashath. “I might need help on the other side, the pack’s gonna be heavy when it’s drenched!”

Nodding, Taashath plunged ahead of him while he shouldered the heavier pack behind. The water came up to Taashath’s chest at its deepest point, and he bobbed precariously in it. 

“Just get on, twig-toes! If we cross this river, we shan’t be far from the camping grounds. Then it’s all lazy afternoons from then on.” He called out, spurring the slight figure onwards. Taashath’s answer was drowned out by the sound.

But the waters were much more treacherous than they had seemed, the riverbed covered with smooth polished rocks that were hard to get a foothold of instead of sand. It took much longer than it should have to cross the river. Again and again he watched Taashath slipping, those delicate elven feet catching in crevices. When he did get a proper foothold, the river would push him off easily, and he’d end up trapped in another crevice.

They were only about halfway across the river when Ashkaari heard something roar above the sound of the waterfall.

At first he thought it was thunder – because it boomed above the sound of any living thing, some great, unidentifiable sound loud enough to outshout the waterfall. His next thought was – _beast?_ – but what would made that kind of sound? There were no dragons this side of the jungles. It sounded, once, then twice, always accompanied by a tremendous crashing sound he couldn’t make out of and it sounded almost like something beating against the water—

“Logs!” He screamed at Taas. “The waterfall! Hurry!”

But Taashath only turned to stare dumbly at him. “What?”

A shadow cut off Ashkaari’s reply, the drowned corpse of a fallen tree carried down the raging river, thrown off the edge of the cliff. Its mass sent it hurling out of the waterfall’s grasp, and already Ashkaari’s mind struggled to calculate the trajectory, of where it would land and whether it was better if they went forward or backward or sideways or if it was simply much too late for them at all.

The answer felt like a stab in his chest, a sword’s worth of fear as he watched the log plow straight at Taashath. The elf struggled against the current indecisively – first towards the other bank, and then instinctively he pulled back and tried to run to Ashkaari instead. He slipped on the rocks, falling into the water, rose and fell again. He screamed something – and Ashkaari could not hear him over the din of the water. Taas was all eyes, hands clawing wildly at water as if it was something tangible to be seized on.

And Ashkaari moved – much too late towards Taashath – and he could do nothing but watch as Taashath fell into the water again, and was submerged just as the log crash into the waters. It missed him – or did it hit him? – or had it crushed him completely? Ashi could not see through the spray, the force of the log landing itself shoved him off his feet, and he struggled mightily just to keep himself upright. When he could stand, there was no elf in sight.

“Taashath? _Taas!_ ”

There was no answer. Ashkaari shoved off his pack, not caring if the damned thing was carried away by the river or eaten by wolves. All he knew was that it slowed him down as he waded wildly through the river as best he could, hands grasping blindly in the water to grab an armful of elf.

He made it to the spot where he’d last seen Taashath and let out a wail, a sound he’d never thought himself capable of making, a sound of terror to be laughed at in others. The water was dyed red, too much red it seemed - diluted by the water and snaking out, like some foul creature had exhaled a red breath in the water.

Then a hand burst out of the water clawing at him – his pants, his hands, blind air – before Taashath surfaced.

Ashkaari stood, immobile. For a moment he thought he was looking at a corpse, some foul undead thing that had replaced Taashath in the split seconds between then and now. Pale and dripping wet, his hair like kelp on his face, one side of his head too red to know if it was even still there under the shimmer of blood. He was unrecognizable, and by instinct Ashkaari flinched back.

“Ashi?” Taas mouthed at Ashkaari. That did it. It broke Ashkaari out of his reverie and he grabbed the elf.

“Oh my god, Taas! Are you alright!?”

Taashath did not answer, both eyes wide, shocked, unseeing – and Ashkaari could only paw ineffectually at him, separating hair from his face. The color of his hair and the blood was so similar that it was hard to even see which was which.

“Did it hit you?” He asked stupidly. He’d found the culprit – it was Taas ear that was bleeding, that and a head wound. But was that how much wounds were supposed to bleed? He had no idea – the most he’d seen was the bleeding of hunted prey, and this was no deer he held in his arms. “Did it – where do you hurt?”

No answer. He muttered to himself, “No, no, of course it didn’t. It’d have kill you in an instant. Couldn’t have hit. Couldn’t possibly. Records of even great wyverns disposed by log traps, yes,” Reason tremulously reasserted itself, and he pulled his limp burden with him towards the far bank. Where there was one log there would soon be others, and he had to get them out of the water before the next great tree kill them in one swoop.

His burden was wheezing and coughing like some dying creature by the time he pulled them up the shore and Ashkaari, always the fucking reasonable person he was, left him there to retrieve the pack he’d casted off. Without it, there would be no glory to this survival – they would only starve to death in a few days. He lugged the waterlogged pack back to Taas and noted, with a detachment he hated of himself, that Taas’ had lost his to the river.

Taashath laid exactly where he left him, sobbing now – or else making strange animal sounds of hurt and fear and death.

Ashkaari wrapped his arms around the elf, and soothed him, “Hey. Hey. Listen to me. It’s alright, Taas. We’re safe now.”

“The- the thing. It was so loud – I thought it was a—“

“It’s nothing. It’s nothing. Just a tree is all. Hush.”

What he himself longed for was, selfishly, to do the practical things: undress Taashath and dry his clothes. Gather firewood for a campfire further away from the bank. Water to clean the wounds; salvage some bandages from the pack perhaps. It would have helped, these practical rituals, because seeing Taashath so near death opened up a wound just as wide in him as Taas’, in a place no needle or bandage could reach.

He feared, and what he feared even more was that he should sooth Taas now and have him die in his arms.

Better that he leave first, if Taas must die. Come back and mourn when all the wretched dying was done with – better that than Ashi should die here with him, heart torn to pieces by the sight of Taas dying inches by inches. Nothing to do, nothing to help. _Useless._

But Taas needed him. He coughed and coughed, all the while hands like little claws on Ashkaari’s chest. There was no escape from the responsibility of injury and dying. Ashi moved Taas’ head sideways so that he could throw up the water he’d swallow. The water was wretched, mixed with their breakfast, though at least there was no blood. Helplessly, Ashi wiped Taas’ wound with his hand, but only succeeded in making it even more of a mess. His big fingers smeared the blood everywhere,

“Let’s get you up,” He said “A bit to eat, and dressing for the wound. You’d be up in no time.” He was reciting to himself the things he needed to do to distance himself from this madness.

Taas only turned to him, grinning madly, words a-choking as they come. “Guess the Great Gurgut won’t be a problem now. It shan’t be scarier than that.”

“Yeah.” He replied, placating. He had no fucking idea why the fuck Taas had to bring that up – it was so small in the microcosm of things that mattered.

“Can’t wait to see Tama’s face,” Taas wheezed, and then fainted dead away, leaving Ashkaari to set up camp and to ponder if those were words of madness or honesty.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback appreciated! It's been a while since I wrote one of these, so do tell me if I contradicted my own imaginary lore from earlier on. Otherwise here's more crazy improperly explained convoluted people doing things. 
> 
> I'm trying to keep things short, since if I really go all out and write everything that needs writing again we're going to have a 300k Tome of Everlasting Words again and omg no, so do poke me too if I ended up glazing over something necessary to the story.


	6. Chapter 6

**Bonus pre-chapter thing:**

lo guys, so I made a couple of Bull/Taas sketches and thought I'll share them with y'all. :D   
Here's Ashi braiding Taas' hair with flowers after said elf lost a bet. He's clearly not happy about this turn of events >A>

There's an accurate version without the eyepatch, but I'm too lazy to upload that one sooo haha  
Anyway, thanks for reading as usual, folks! <3

* * *

 

  
Taashath woke to the sound of incompetent singing, a series of click in a large throat that passed for singing in the Qunari’s language. He was cold to the bones, and even though he was wrapped up in their thick blankets, he couldn’t stop shivering. Their surroundings came dimly to him: the night sky in these jungles were either madly illuminated by countless stars, or else completely dark after rain. There was – as even nature conspired to remind him – no safe middle ground to walk in these lands.

He searched for a towering horned figure in the dark, but their campfire was lit so poorly that all he could make out beyond its immediate surroundings was the dust, airily reflecting the fire.

“Ashkaari?”

The singing stopped, and shadows shifted in the distance.

“You’re awake,” Came the grunted reply.

Taashath nodded, confident it could be seen. The blankets on him were heavy enough that he could tell that these were all the ones they had, or else it was wet. But they weren’t wet, not as they should be. He laid back, remembering the river, and the terrifying shadow of indistinct shape. Recalled sounds louder than he’d ever heard in his short life.

Once, a group of magisters had borrowed their master’s ritual chambers to open a portal. They’d only wanted to summon small demons – little, tree-like things that clambered up walls like demonic monkeys. Spies, they’d said, only the smallest of demons. But the sound that came when the portal opened was like something from Nightmare itself. Even pass the thick stone walls of the kitchen you could hear the shrieks, and it didn’t matter where you were – sorting wine in the furthest cellar or right next to it – it struck fear into all their hearts. In the split second when the tree had crashed into the water, the sound was exactly like that.

“I’ve been out long, have I?” He asked.

“A whole day. You should be glad to have slept through it – you smelt and looked like a drowned nug.”

“Oh, good. I wouldn’t want to be caught dead looking under the _water_.” He paused, to let that sink in.

“That is terrible, kadan. You should be ashamed of yourself.” Ashkaari chuckled. The shadows parted, and the qunari came into view, though tall as he was now even his face was shrouded by shadows. Taashath could make out the faint beginnings of a smile, and he returned it.

“That’s me. If the Qun won’t let me hurt people with fists, I’ll hurt them with my bad jokes.” He lifted himself off his elbows, and shuffled backwards until his back hit a tree. He patted the ground beside him meaningfully, and Ashkaari obliged.

In silence, Ashi hung a pot of fresh water onto a makeshift pit, adding wild herbs and mushrooms willy nilly into bubbling water. A fish accompanied the thickening mess, and Taas scowled at those wide shoulders.  The only thing he hated more than grilled fish was tasteless, water-boiled fish – but Ashkaari answered only with a mild grunt.

“Don’t give me that look. Anything heavier than this now and you’ll be throwing it up back to the river.”

Taas did not protest. He was tired anyhow, the cold seeping in no matter how much he curled into himself. He wanted to ask Ashkaari for warmth, but he could tell by the way the qunari was carrying himself – shoulders slightly hunched, head tilted downwards like a bull about to charge – that Ashi was not feeling up to hugs. Or conversation. Or joking. Or Taashath in general. He got like that when he was fed up with Taas’.

In such silence they waited for their food, and when it was ready, Ashkaari wordlessly passed him a bowl of mashed up fish gruel. The bowl itself was clumsily crafted from peeled Ironbark. Taas wrinkled his nose at it, but scarfed it down without complaint. The sooner he ate, the sooner Ashkaari would be in a better mood.

He passed the bowl back to Ashkaari when he was done, and watched Ashkaari water it down with the remains of their broth.

“So I guess we lost some of our stuff?” He pointed at the bowl. “Shame. Dath’s bowl was solid stuff. I really liked the wyrm carvings on it.”

Grunt. Wash. Unnecessary tidying.

“Wonder how he’ll feel when we show up and tell him we lost his bowl to a great ol’ river. Which reminds me, what was that thing? Are logs a regular feature in your rivers or what? Do the rivers grow them to smash visitors to bits for some nutrient-rich blood?” He continued, when there was no answer. “Wouldn’t surprise me a bit if your rivers killed people for food too. I mean, I’ve seen exactly one species that don’t kill people for food since I’ve come here, and in case you’re wondering – it’s not the Qunari.”

“ _Taashath_.” Came the warning growl.

“What? You know I don’t like silence. I nearly got smashed to bits by a wandering bit of stick. I think I deserve to know if it’s part of the landscape.”

A long growl and then surrender, as Ashkaari always does in the face of unrelenting elven prattle. “It’s the offspring of the Aban-ataashi, alright? Sea dragons. They swim in these rivers when they’re young, learn the ropes of being a dragon, and kill each other until the winner swims out to the Boeric sea. In Common it’d be…” He paused, searching for words. “Cetus, I think they’re called. Full-grown ones are glorious, eating ships and whales alike.”

“And they _really_ look like trees, do they?” Taashath said, skeptical.

“Nah,” Ashi chuckled lightly. “But they do uproot a lot of trees when they fight for territory. Swinging them into each other, I hear. So if you’re travelling downstream to a turf war you’d be in a lot of trouble.”

“I see. Bet you would have liked to see that, eh? Two eels thrashing each other for dinner.”

“Yeah. It would have been glorious,” Ashi sighed wistfully, completely missing the sarcasm. Taashath watched Ashkaari patted about their small camp, searching for things to do. _Busy hands cannot strangle your brothers_ – another one of those fucked up Qunari proverbs that they’ve got, came to Taashath. Then a good spot of light lit up Ashkaari, and Taas reached out a hand to stop him.

“Wait, what’s that?”

“What?”

“That.” He pulled at Ashi until Ashkaari came closer, and Taas brushed a thumb over his lips. The left side bore a deep scar, the wound still raw and red. “I distinctly recalled I was the one that went head-over-heels for the branch. What happened?”

“Just a splinter,” Ashi answered, flushing. That sweet grey skin of his would not redden, but by now Taas could tell when he was embarrassed – the slight squint in the eyes, the wry expression. “My face was all numb, didn’t even know I was bleeding until way later.”

“Now look at your ugly mug, it’s almost handsome.”

“Cut it out, Taas,” He said gruffly.

“No, really!” Taas protested. “You were all smooth-faced before this. Now you’ve got your first scar to go with your mug. Rogueish, almost. I was getting worried, you know. Most of the other Imekari look like dangerous criminals by now, and here’s you with a face like an elven behind. I’d have cut your face myself if this caution thing had gone on for much longer.”

“If you’re trying to console me, you’re not doing so hot, kadan.”

“I just don’t want you to cry salty tears of vanity into your bedroll tonight. And there’s that word again – why are you calling me your brother?” He glared at Ashkaari. “If you’re about to spin me some story about second thoughts after near-death experiences and being so fraught with worry you can’t bear the thought of being with me…”

“Someone’s been reading too many dwarven romances,” Ashi returned, a teasing smile dragging his new scar upwards.

“There’s only one romance novel in the entire settlement, and it’s also the only book in Tevene.” He pointed out.

“Maybe Besra might get you a few books off the dead Vints he kills. Just play nice with him.”

“Don’t piss around the horse, Ashi.”

“Alright, alright,” Ashkaari sighed, his big hand clasping the one Taas held against his cheek. Romantic gestures – which Taas considered any form of handholding one - came to Ashi far easier than to Taashath. “It’s… You know, Qunlat. There are no endearments greater than to be one’s brother in it.”

“And I am dear to you, am I?” He teased, his face splitting with a grin. “You would like to endear yourself to me, is that right?”

Ashkaari rolled his eyes. “If I’m the sort to feast on romance, I’d starve by now. Fuck off, twig-toes. You know what I mean.”

He tugged at Ashkaari, and Ashi released his hands. Maneuvering clumsily in his blankets, he rolled around until he was snug against Ashkaari’s chest. “Yes, yes, the great big lard-ass adores me and can’t find words in his language to tell me because they’re all about dragons. For your information, amatus – the Vint word for it is amatus. Until you learn all 52 Orlesian words for it and find the one that doesn’t mean ‘little cabbage’, you’re that. Are we clear?”

“Crystal.”

“Good. Now, we sleep.”

Ashkaari didn’t need to be told twice. Silence was after all always Taashath’s problem, not his. Ashkaari was the one content to feel in wordless silence. They watched the fire burn itself out from drooping eyelids. The subsequent darkness was absolute, and he knew even his elven eyes – which usually fare better than qunari ones in the dark – would not see anything again until first dawn tomorrow. He felt Ashi’s arms encircling him, and he draped himself as best he could over Ashkaari, knowing the big lug would be cold without any blanket, and knowing also that he would refuse any offered.

Taas had almost fallen asleep, when Ashkaari squeezed his arm.

“We’re still going to talk about your plan to run away and win the hunt alone.”

Without the fire crackling, you could easily hear Taashath swallowing. “Sleeptalked, did I?”

“Like a tale-weaver. And since you like talking so much, you’re also going to tell me how your fool brain imagined yourself capable of even getting there alone – much less defeat it.”

Taashath groaned and squirmed, but Ashkaari pinched him and he stilled. “I suppose I have to tell you the whys too?”

“Nah,” Ashkaari said, easily. “I know why.”

And for the first time in his life, Taashath was grateful of the generous silence, into which all the words he couldn’t speak were lavished.

\--

They did not speak about it after all, because Ashkaari took the decision into his own hands. Without saying a word to Taashath about it, he packed up their camp three days later and set their course westwards. They were gone far enough that their destination – the safe clearing that Ashkaari had talked and talked about, where Taas had planned to desert him – was only a day’s journey away. The fact that they were cutting westwards instead of northeast as they’d plan spoke plainly enough.

Now it was Taashath who had second thoughts. It was not the brush with death: he was not the kind of person who dwelled in a disaster’s court after it courted him. Alone, he would have plunged into danger without a second thought. It wasn’t bravery, or courage, or any of that rot. Taas knew himself well enough to know that with danger at least, he was a fool.

It was just an untethered feeling that he’d only recently found to be unique to himself. As if having gone so long living from day to day with nothing to look forward to except a death under some magister’s sacrificial knife – or some timely accident into a well if he lived old enough – he did not see danger in the same terms as everyone else. They would talk about the things that could be lost – friends, family, dreams – whereas he saw only the things to be gotten if he should succeed.

What did he have to lose, after all? Ashkaari, it seemed, was the answer.

It was funny how small things could become a symbol for things so much greater. A gash up someone’s mouth, for example, a symbol of mortality itself. Because it was that little scar on Ashkaari’s face, the one that seems to grow more prominent every time he smiled. It reminded Taashath that for all Ashkaari’s confidence, for all Taashath’s unequivocal trust in him – he was but a child. Ashkaari was a child, and Taashath was a child, and they were all children playing at a game with deathly consequences. If Ashkaari could scar, he could fall and he could die – and Taashath did not want that, to have Ashi’s death on his hands.

So he tried to dissuade Ashkaari, prodding him at every turn, goading him into an argument that would end with them facing eastwards again. Taashath knew he could win any sort of verbal argument, but he couldn’t win if Ashi refused to speak of their course. Whenever Taashath brought the topic up – _maybe we should go back, imagine the things we could do in safety, Ashi_ – Ashkaari only gave him a stubborn look, and tomorrow when he shouldered his pack they would be walking westwards again.

A few times, Taashath had simply sat down and threw tantrums, shouting that he refused to go kill things if Ashkaari was to tag along. But as if to prove that Taas was never brave enough to desert him in the first place, Ashkaari only plodded stubbornly on, and before long Taashath would be tearing down the jungle after him, masking fear with loud words. He’d yell insults, instead of doing what he really wanted to – which was to apologize for this madness, beg for forgiveness, and make Ashkaari turn back.

When he came upon an idea, he took it to Ashkaari. “This is about me not needing you anymore, isn’t it? You’re pissed that I tried to run out on you, because that means I don’t need you anymore. You were exactly like this when Rasan and Tasan asked Dath to join them too.”

Ashkaari’s turned to him with surprising venom and shouted, “Not every one of my feelings are about you, Taashath. I was feeling things long before you arrived – so fuck off!”

So they bickered, but that was nothing new. They bickered endlessly even back in the settlement. The only difference was what they were bickering about now, and the timeline pressed onto their neck. With every hill they scrambled over, they drew closer to the gurgut’s nests.

In the meantime they had to fend off smaller, lesser beasts, which was hard to do when Ashkaari was sullen with him. Mostly, these were scavengers that fed off corpses, and they circled around them unnervingly. For two days they were trailed by red wolves. They’d fought them off in a few skirmishes, and by the time the fourth wolf had been singed by magefire, the wolves had learned to retreat.

But retreat was not escape, and for days the wolves stubbornly dogged them at a distance. They’d wake in the middle of night and see the terrifying greenish glow of the wolves’ eyes, a dozen of them just beyond the limits of their camp. They’d wake up an hour later and the wolves would have moved – crawling an inch at a time forwards. In the daylight they’d hunt smaller game, always aware of the wolves tailing them, staring hungrily whenever they bagged an animal.

Ashkaari would not let him fight them. A dozen at a time would rip them apart, he’d say, and the best to be done for now was to keep them away with fire, size, and the occasional application of hilt to muzzle. In the end Taashath gave up his quest to get them to turn around, and made peace with Ashi.

By the time they caught sight of the mountains, High-Summer was already half-past. His first sight of the mountains did nothing to persuade Taashath forward, and if he’d been alone he’d certainly have turned and run straight back to the wolves they’d shaken off.

The ash mountains were, in reality, little more than small hills that broke up a massive swamp. The swamp itself was quartered off by a network of hills, hollowed out by an infestation of gurguts that wiped out almost all other species in the area. Nor do other animals have a great desire to remain in the place, because where the land wasn’t littered with mudpits, it was filled with dirty water that boiled over arbitrarily.

The ash mountains circle a volcano whose name Taashath couldn’t pronounce – some dormant monstrosity that only puffed dust and ash but nevertheless randomly boils the grounds over. And you never knew when the water was going to boil you either, and if it started boiling while you were in it, you could be dead before you reached the shore. Only the gurgut thrived, having apparently much higher heat resistance than other creatures. It was crazy, and what was even crazier was that this was what the Qunari considered a test, some swampy version of hell where they send children to prove that they were adults.

The journey would be arduous, easily twice as slow as the journey across the jungles.

Seeing all this laid out before him, Ashkaari said. “Oh, shit.”

“Can we go back now?” Taashath turned to him. “I’m sorry, alright? I’m really, really sorry. I’ll rub horn balm all day on your horns if it’s what you want, but can we please go back?”

“No,” Ashi said, with steely determination. He softened at the sight of Taas, practically shaking in his fucking boots. “Hey now, don’t worry so much. We’ve got this. I mean, this is what you wanted, right?”

“Wanted,” He noted.

“Look, just… I’m not doing this to punish you.” He straightened Taas’ much smaller pack, which they’d fashioned out of Ashi’s after he’d lost his to the river. It was unnecessary, a gesture of awkward affection. “I know what you wanted. And I want to do this, because I—“

He grunted, rubbed his horn stubs. “This is hard to explan. Because I want it too, I guess. You showed me a dream that was better than mine, even if you didn’t know it. This is a lot of risk, but it might be worth it.”

 “We are probably going to fail, and then we’ll go home and both of us will be told we’re suited to shave deathroot for the rest of our lives.” Ashkaari shrugged, and grinned. “But hey, at least they’ll know we’re equally incompetent.”

“So your grand scheme is for us both to look bad enough that they’ll have no choice but to give us the same shitty jobs?”

“Yup.” Ashkaari replied cheerfully.

They both knew he jested: that they’d both come this far without dying was worth merit. Now all they had to do was try, be seen trying, and make it back home in one piece instead of five.

“I like it,” Taashath announced. “But you’re going to be the first to go in this pot of doom.”

He shoved Ashkaari off the hill they were on, and taken off guard, the Qunari went flailing into the swamp. Peering over the edge, Taashath shouted, “How’s it bubbling, lard-ass?”

“I’m boiling! I’m boiling!” Ashkaari screamed, the qunari hidden from Taashath’s point of view.

“Serves you right,” He yelled back.

With clumsy feet, he maneuvered around the edge of the hill, finding a place where he could descend without landing on his ass. It was hard work when all the mud was wet and sticky. When some time had passed and still no sounds came from below, he called out again.

“Ashkaari?”

“Ashkaari?” He repeated, louder.

Still nothing. With an unnamed fear, he decided – fuck it all - and dashed down the side too. The mud was too slippery for a proper descent, and he slid on his arse before crashing right into the arms of a laughing qunari. A laughing qunari that wasn’t boiling.

“I’m going to cook you.” He snarled at Ashikaari.

“Fair enough, but first you’d have to find a boiling swamp!” And with another laugh he scooped up the Vidatharri and made their way across their first swamp, careful not to drop his burden into mud that came up to Taas’ thighs.

\--

The first thing they did was to look for the other Imekari.

To Taashath’s surprise, they were not about to charge into a gurgut-laden battlefield and cleave them some scaly lizards. In fact, Ashkaari was downright incredulous when he suggested as much, massaging his scaly forehead as if the suggestion was bringing on a headache.

“Was that your plan? Kill gurguts on your own? No, don’t tell me. I don’t even want to know.” At length, he explained that no – Imekari did not take on full-grown gurguts taller than them with apprentice weapons. If everyone did that, it’d be more like an idiocy test – anyone dumb enough to charge into the nest alone would be idiots the Qun could do without. Taashath’s face turned as red as his hair.

Instead, Ashkaari patiently explained, the test was twofold – those who made it here had honor. But what was prized above that was cooperation. The Imekari will band together, often hitting the scaly beasts hard before retreating to safe camps, often guarded by campmen skilled in cooking, skinning, and repairing the warriors’ weapons. There would be half a dozen teams of these littered around the area.

Teams merge and divide according to needs. Injury usually, but sometimes arguments, cowardice, or even death. The greatest honor might go to those who strike the finishing blow against the Great Gurgut, but it’d have been weaken beforehand by weeks of steady skirmishing with the other Imekari.

“All this you would have known if you’d just ask me,” He pointed out.

“Well I could hardly go up to you and say ‘Be a mate, Ashi, and tell me how I might kill four-legged-lizards alone. They’d be about this long and this high and live at the base of such and such volcano’.”

“And your stubbornness nearly made you the most foolish Imekari to ever face the gurgut – if you make it this far at all.”

“Yes, yes. Wipe that smirk off your face before I wipe it off for you.”

“And how would you do that?”

“Through unsolicited ministrations, in dangerous and muddy situations.” He gave him a lecherous grin to underline the threat.

They set off, carefully maneuvering around the hills to find one of these camps with a team they could join. They were already late, and Ashkaari told Taas that by now the hunting should be ongoing in earnest. With injured team members and a few mauled warriors, the Imekari would be glad to receive reinforcement. Glad, provided Taas kept a lid on his magic.

“Don’t use it unless we’re absolutely alone. You never know who’s watching from the hills, so maybe not even then.”

“Fire would be fucking useless here anyway. If these things can survive volcanic boiling, anything I throw at them would be a scratch behind the ear. Unless…” He trailed off thoughtfully. A moment later, Ashkaari let out a yelp.

“What the hell was that?”

“Lightning magic,” Taas said proudly. “With so much water around here, it’d be a cinch to zap them.”

“Never, ever fucking do that again, Taas. Don’t you dare use your magic on me.” Ashkaari growled. Taas was about to write it off with some glib phrase, but the fury on Ashi’s face stopped him.

“Alright, alright,” He said, placating. “I won’t.”

But already he was planning on zapping a few eels he’d seen swimming in the swamps for dinner.

They came upon a deserted camp near sundown. It was a good thing, because Ashkaari looked worried out of his mind at the prospect of spending a night out alone. They didn’t have time yet to scope out the surroundings, and Ashi himself had no idea what passed as firewood in these waterlogged areas. If they were still alone by nightfall, they’d have been killed before midnight.

But the camp offered no allies in addition to shelter. There was only a pile of semi-dry wood that marked it as a camp at all. That and some animal bones, leftovers from a meal. Of the qunari themselves there were no sign, and the tracks around the camp were stiff, mud hardened by at least a day or more.

“Not sure if this is luck, or an ill omen,” Ashkaari growled, starting their fire. It would have to be a frugal one. The dry wood looked like the inner bark of some specific kind of tree, and until they figured out what kind of trees to use, every stick was precious.

“Didn’t know you guys believed in ill omen. Now the magisters, the magisters could see a skull in any pot of tea with enough determination.”

“Normally not, but…” Ashkaari trailed off, lost in some private thought he wouldn’t share.

In the morning they were off again, looking for the Imekari camps. From Ashkaari’s description, Taashath had expected something festive, almost. Campfires here and there every night, teams of Imekari jovially tucking in before another long day of gurgut hunting. But the reality was much more solitary – the camp they’d found was tucked behind an overgrowth of swampy plants on a long-dead tree, and by afternoon they’d seen neither hide nor hair of any other team, so well hidden were they.

They met another team eventually. Taas was the first to see him – a bare-chested Imekari covered in the copper-colored vitaar used by children. Ashkaari had perked right up, and yelled out a greeting in Qunlat.  But the Imekari only looked at them coldly.

“We do not accept unproven stragglers,” He said, clearly divining why they were alone. “Find another. There is a team southwest of here with only a campman left.”

So they set off in that direction, disheartened by the rebuff. They met a handful of gurguts that day, skulking about the swamps, lazily swiping at eels like it was some reptilian game they played to kill time. They were lucky enough that the gurguts did not notice them – or else they did but were not incited to hunt them down – and they managed to steal past the creatures.

But no matter how many hills they scoured, there was no sign of the Imekari.

“Not too many teams made it this year,” Ashkaari sighed. “In the good years, I hear you can’t leap pass a mountain without stepping on someone’s horns. That’s not good. There’s safety in numbers.”

“If all your rivers are as dangerous as the one we crossed, it’s no surprise there’s a lot of Imekari-meatloafs and no living ones.”

But by then they’d had bigger worries than how many Imekari made it here: it was nearing sundown again, and still no sign of a camp. They were exhausted, weak, easy prey. It was too late now to hunt for wood and make a camp of their own – and in any case this side of the swamp was completely waterlogged. The water was foul and sloshed around their thighs, flooding their shoes to make even walking a chore. There were hardly enough banks to look at in which to find camps.

They were beginning to grow desperate, and Taashath could see the sweat shining on Ashkaari’s skin despite the cold, the tight jaw that was all worry and exasperation.

Taashath was more vocal about his worries, ignoring the threat of the gurgut for the more immediate threat of darkness.

“Fuck this,” He yelled at the top of his lungs, scaring a wandering eel away. “Is anyone out there? Any horned bastards what got a spot for a couple more folks?”

“What are you doing? Are you crazy? You’ll bring the whole swamp on us.” Ashkaari snapped, frustration mounting.

“We’ll be dead in about an hour anyway, unless we find them. What’s the bloody difference?” Taas shot back.

They turned towards the hills, but there was only the faint echo of Taashath’s voice. No one heard them – or else no one who heard bothered to answer them.

“Bloody unfriendly qunari,” Taashath growled, pushing Ashkaari aside to move forward. Ashi held out a hand, stopping him.

“Wait. Listen. What’s that?”

Straightening, Taashath heard – the sound of shifting mud, like someone scrabbling over it. It came from a close by hill, somewhere up above them. The sound stopped a moment later, and a familiar head thrust out from the hill.

“Ashkaari?” The voice was tentative, hopeful. Ashkaari immediately recognized the mop of shaggy black hair and the gently curving horn stubs.

“Dath?” He said, incredulous. “Is that you?”

“Oh, praise the fates!” Dath scrambled over a narrow ledge, and slid ungraciously down the hill. He stopped, noticing Taashath for the first time. “And you.” He noted less enthusiastically, but then perked up. “I suppose it’s not too bad, you are quite good at punching things.”

“Thanks for the glowing recommendation. They’ll write me up in the Antivan Annals yet.”

Dath only wringed his hands nervously, looking around. “It’s dangerous to stay out here. Come on back to camp,” He invited. “Tasan isn’t back yet, so it’s just me in there. I was starting to get worried – I thought I’ll have to spend the night alone again.” Looking the both of them over, he asked Ashi. “I can’t believe you’re here. Didn’t you say you’re passing the days east of here?”

“Why do you think?”

“Ahhhhh.” The two gave Taas a meaningful look.

“Hey, that isn’t fair! You’re the one who dragged us out here this time,” Taashath protested. Ashkaari only smiled serenely, climbing up the same ledge Dath had come down from.

“It was your idea first. That makes it your fault, forever.”

Taashath groused all the way up, which was a surprisingly hard climb despite the fact that it wasn’t more than twelve feet tall. The mud was hard to get ahold of, and sometimes he got ahold of it but it stuck to him so tightly that he had to take some time to shake himself loose – balancing precariously on his other hand, his feet constantly slipping on the surface.

They dragged themselves up the hill eventually, into a tiny cave with three bedrolls a campfire ready to be lit.

“This area of the swamp is full of these little holes,” Dath explained. “We’ve been camped in this one for more than a week. The Great Gurgut is only a short while northwest of here.”

Taas did not care about any gurgut at the moment, stretching out luxuriantly in front of the firewood. “Ahhhh, a proper bedroll. I haven’t seen one of these since we left home. Some ox,” He nodded at Ashi. “Forgot to pack the good stuff.”

“Some ox was the only one carrying the heavy shit,” Ashi shot back. To Dath, he was all business. “Where’s Tasan and Rasan? It’s so close to sunset – they should be back by now, shouldn’t they?”

Dath only swallowed, and wrung his hands worse. “Tasan’s been staying out later and later recently.”

“He? Wait, so Rasan—”

Dath shrugged, looking lost and helpless, picking at the frayed ends of a bedroll. “He was killed last week in a skirmish. They joined up with another team in a fight against the Great one, but Tasan said…” He sighed, entire frame shuddering with emotion.

“Tasan said the other team threw Rasan to the wolves. They retreated without sounding their horn until they were a while away, and by then Ta’ and Ra’ couldn’t get away from it. Tasan managed to drag Rasan back here, but… Rasan’s in the next hill over now. Tasan was beyond distraught and I – I couldn’t get the smell of blood out of the cave for days,” He added, wrinkling his nose and sighing at some remembered smell.

He was all little movements, Dath – worried twitching, sighs, shudders. “Now Ta’s after the other team more than he’s after the gurgut. He stays out later and later every day, and yesterday he didn’t come back at all.”

“So you think he’s—” Taas started to say.

Dath shook his head. “No, Tasan’s a very good fighter. And his is a dragon’s fury now. I think he didn’t come back because he’s killed another team, and rested at their campfire. It’s very negative around here, right now.”

“I can tell,” Ashkaari said. “We met another team on our way here, and they all but told us to git. And another camp we came across was deserted.”

“There’s still a few teams working on the Great Gurgut. At least that’s still going on. The sooner this ends, the sooner we can all go home. It’s a good thing you’re here though, Ashkaari – you’d have some scheme to snare it in no time, I’m sure.” Dath smiled confidently at him, all faith and trust. Taas knew that feeling – he half believed Ashkaari would storm right in and grabbed the Great Gurgut by its ears himself, despite witnessing Ashi’s faltering faith in his own knowledge. They both knew the oaf would save the day – had he not done so a thousand times over?

They discussed locations and traded information a while longer, Dath telling them all he knew about the plants and trees that were useful and salvageable in these swamps, and the locations – that he knew of – that contained many gurgut, and where the Great Gurgut itself usually rested.

The other teams had been forcing it steadily southward, he explained, and now it was trapped in a clearing close to their cave. But the mud there was a terrible mess – all water and eels and leeches that bit your ankles while you tried to fight - when you could fight at all, with the mud drastically limiting mobility. So far not many Imekari had fallen – there were only two beside Rasan that Dath knew of.

At last, the sky outside went completely dark. They were all tired – the both of them with their journey, Dath with excitement – and with wordless cooperation they lit the fire and curled up into their bedrolls. Taashath dragged his over to Ashi’s, even though the cave was warm enough to sleep alone. He pinched Ashkaari until he turned over, wearily surrendering his chest as a pillow.

Listening to Dath’s gentle snores, they slept, dreaming of the darkened hills and the beasts that slept beyond their cave.

\--

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey-yo! Long time no see, guys. Bet y'all have given up the notion of my ever returning to this, yeah? This time you have the comments to thank since they showed up in the mailbox and I remember I had half a chapter typed up...
> 
> Anyhow, this was written 0.5-1 year after the previous chapter, so there'll be some stylistic inconsistencies (I'm a less funny person these days, for example) and maybe even contradictory world building stuff. Just drop me a comment if you see any and I'll try to fix it up asap.

It took them two more days before they were even ready to face the Great Gurgut.

At the first sign of dawn, Taashath was woken up by Ashkaari to prepare for the coming hunt. Dath shone – not only with sweat, for he puttered about more than they did, dashing out of the tiny cave to recover roots whose locations only he knew – but with enthusiasm. There was, he insisted, nothing he wanted in this world more than to be rid of these marshy swamps, and he’d lug a Gurgut’s carcass all the way back to the settlement if that was what it took.

They put blades to whetstone, some spares already slightly rusted from disuse and their watery journey there. Taashath had only his short bow, which was just as well, since he wielded it with more skill than the longbow that had snapped and washed away like a puny branch.

Ashkaari had his usual, a ‘miniature’ greataxe not quite up to par with the ones you’d find in the Antaam’s armory, but still half again as tall as Taashath. It had – ironically – survived the journey by being broken in the first place, sawn in half in such a way that it could be solidly reconstructed with a bit of twine and a properly viscous substance.

He concerned himself with questions instead, pestering poor Dath to death with them. Where exactly was the Great Gurgut? What did he know about its movements – is it ever anywhere else, influenced by the time of the day, the phases of the moon, its diet? What did it eat – when it did not eat Imekari – and could it be poisoned? Had Dath ever seen it fight before?

But for all of Dath’s efficiency in the camp, he had no answers for these questions. The only thing he could say for sure was that the Great Gurgut was no angry beast. Even though it was the alpha, its temperament was like its brethren. They moved languidly, often with expressions of idiocy that might convince an inexperienced hunter that they were the dumb beasts they resemble. They attacked sporadically but predictably, and you could march right up to its nose one day to no reaction and be mauled viciously on another.

“Well, that’s helpful,” Ashkaari had grumbled under his breath. “So the Great Gurgut is just a Gurgut, but big, maybe. And it’s unpredictable, so everything it does is a big maybe too. That’s a lot of maybes. I don’t like it.”

“Oh, get that stick out of your arse, Ashi. Look at me – the biggest maybe of your life, and I turned out just fine, didn’t I?”

“I certainly wouldn’t want to end up sneaking out with a gurgut to the fields, if that’s what you’re implying.” Ashi returned dryly.

Taas burst out laughing. “Imagine the look on Tama’s face!”

“There are no laws against frolicking with Gurguts, at least!”

They collapsed with peals of laughter, before heading out to read the lay of the land. It would be the first of many days, and there was no grandstanding and dramatic farewells to be made before it.

On those days, Taashath would sharpen their swords and mend their armor, while Ashkaari was to come home nightly with wounds that needed bandaging - some from skirmishes with the Gurgut family and some even from other Imekari.

“You weren’t kidding when you said they’re hostile this year. One of them shot an arrow at me for coming too close. All I wanted was to ask them for tales of their battles.” He told Dath.

“I thought this was supposed to be a collaboration. Guess it’s no surprise that the Qunari’s idea of collaboration is a quiver full of arrows in your chest.” Taas quipped.

“It’s _supposed_ to be, but the resources are scarce this year, or so I heard before they fell so utterly apart,” Came the explanation from Dath. He chin wobbled with guilt, as if he had single-handedly plotted the poor relations between the Imekari groups. “The volcano boiled over during high-Winter, with a third of the swamp blocked off by uprooted mangroves. More than half the gurgut’s nests are supposed to be there - or so we’ve heard from yesteryear’s challengers, so it was supposed to be much safer for us here.”

“Instead the other are bickering among themselves precisely because they don’t have to work around the clock to survive.” Ashkaari surmised with a grimace. He did not have to look at Taashath to know that he’d have a self-satisfied grin on his face, all his ill-opinions of Qunari confirmed in a single stroke.

At night they bundled together, he and Ashkaari in one bedroll beside the abandoned one of the long dead Rasan, the both of them gazing across the expanse of leather lit by dying embers. It was no romantic symbol of death, but it was there in their faces all the same.

“Have you got a plan?” Taashath would ask every now and then, whispering so that it wouldn’t wake the shuddering figure of Dath, plagued by his own nightmares.

“No, Taashath. Be quiet and let me rest.” Would come the grumbling reply. The more Taashath heard the more he agreed too - they know of no Imekari they could band with, if only because both of them had been too much involved with each other to make any sure friends. All their friends were those who aspire to be scholars and artisans, or content to dream distantly of the Antaam. Whichever Imekari was sleeping under the same stars as theirs tonight, it would be no bosom buddies of theirs.

How then to slaughter a Gurgut? Dath was no help. Ashikaari was strong but not a God, to wipe a mighty beast alone with a bad archer as support. The only way he could see them succeed was his magic, but to even whisper such a plan - to even begin to plot such a thing was taboo, a secret to be whispered when the embers have died.

Not to mention, Ashkaari steadfastly refused to listen to him. Every time Taas begin to speak of magic - of the possible solutions to their dilemma - Ashkaari would shut him up with a dismissive wave of his hand.

“I know of the strengths you possess, kadan, but to imagine that we could fell the Great Gurgut even if you were to burn it with all your might would be ridiculous. Ir was last fell three summers ago with three teams of six.”

“Armed with sticks and bad bronze! We could be more than that. I know an enchantment that could imbue your axe with the edge of a true blade--”

“Honestly, Taas! You sound like a bloody demon, with your coulds and woulds and maybes. We will not win the challenge with Vint trickery! There would only be Taar for our souls!” Ashkaari thundered, his fury brooking no compromise.

“Fuck your souls! And fuck your ox-headed, swine-addled customs too!” Taas shouted back.

But even he knew his argument was sound. There was no way they could defeat the Great Gurgut with so few active Imekari, and they would not defeat it with sticks and stones. At best they would add another scar to the hide of the Great Gurgut, one of many silvery lines criss-crossing its back.

He knew of the scars, for on the third day they ventured out in the afternoon to the Great Gurgut’s nest, to see the Imekari battle it for supremacy.

The journey to the Great Gurgut itself was surprisingly anticlimactic for something they’d looked at with dread since the very first. It had in fact been comically easy to find: half submerged in a deep swamp with its tail flicking back and forth. It was huge, the centrepiece of the swamp with its girth, leaving no room at all for any other maneuvering minions eager to take up its leftovers. Eels thrashed in the water around it, almost invisible under the mucous, gunky nature of the water around it. It didn’t take long to pinpoint why the swamp there was especially viscous.

“Look, Ashi. It’s drooling.” Taashath said. They were both huddled on higher ground, tiny ledges and cliffs that surrounded the alpha’s little piece of swamp. It made it easy for it defend against other predators; against warriors it made it susceptible to archers.

 Ashkaari only nodded. “Be thankful it is only this species they have us after. I heard up north of Par Vollen, the Imekari hunt poisonous gurguts, their jowls quivering all the time with deadly poison. Their swamps melt your boots off if you stay too long in them.”

 “Leather?”

“Steel.”

 Taas whistled. The beast gave no indication it heard – in fact, it gave no indication it was alive at all, but for the steady rise and fall of its body.

“It doesn’t seem very dangerous…” He stated dubiously.

 But Ashi only said, “Wait. We have to observe it. Let’s wait until we see it in action against some of the other teams.”

 “Are you sure? It doesn’t even look all that tough. I don’t see why we can’t just roll a rock down and give it a good whacking-to. There isn’t even enough space in here for it to avoid a nice big boulder.”

Two days later he saw why that would never work:

Another team of Imekari broke fast with them at dawn, sneaking up on them before offering to share bread and water. This team was friendlier than the one they had met earlier, but Ashkaari’s wariness towards them set off Taashath’s own suspicious nature as well. The other team welcomed the addition of an archer, and Ashi – but they strategized on their own and fought as if the two of them didn’t exist, which was just as well.

Taashath quickly learned that first day that the greatest element of strategy involved in battling the Great Gurgut had nothing to do with the beast: it was watching your own allies like a hawk as much as you watch your foe, for the last to leave in any one skirmish was the most likely to get a taste of its claws.

Therefore every tiny battle – and there were numerous in a day alone – was a game of politics. At any moment you might form coalitions or betray someone. You might find yourself trapped in a corner for example, and rescued only by the grace and benevolence of an ally. The next moment you might find yourself excluded from a retreating call, and suddenly you’re the only one fencing with claws the size of two of your swords while your allies retreat to the cliffs.

Then you were all alone - and if you escaped you were brave and honorable and all that tripe, and if you didn’t – well, too fucking bad.

“But this is damned ridiculous,” Taashath complained to Ashikaari. “Isn’t this about teamwork? About learning to work like a damnably flawless machine, the way you guys always yap on about?”

Ashi shrugged. “Teamwork’s very nice and all, but the greater lesson was always this: how to cut out the flesh that’s hurting you for the good of the whole. In case you didn’t notice,” He added sardonically. “The Qun says there’s a place for everyone, and that by nature means anyone not in place is a threat to it.”

“Nice to see a confident religion that’s got nothing to fear from dissenters.”

“On the bright side, anyone who survives will know the dangers of dissent so well they’ll accept their destiny to sew sacks for the rest of their lives.”

“Cheery.”

The warriors were no match for Ashkaari - or so Taas judged in a quiet whisper to Ashi. It was an olive branch, after their latest bickering about magic.

 Ashkaari merely snorted, “Your eyesight is like a dwarf's. Look at that one.” He pointed to the biggest of the lot. He was half a head shorter than Ashkaari, but what he lacked in height he made up with strong, sinewy muscles on every available inch. His deltoids, Taas noted, would put Antivan Hooked Cannonballs to shame.

“He’s twelve moons older than us. They call him Taar-Taarbas - he hunts so successfully he could take accounts for the dead.”

“Well, in Tevinter his name would be a sauce. I still don’t think they’re a match for you.” Taas returned.

It was true - they were vicious fighters, as worthy as any that stood in the ranks of the Antaam. But none of them were as cunning as Ashkaari, who Taashath had seen pitting crafting traps out of nothing more menacing than elfroot stems and the ribcage of a dead Tuskeling. Or perhaps he did have flowers in his eyes, blind to everything but admiration for his great ox. Was that so wrong?

They certainly watched the battle with different eyes.

Taashath saw only the movements of the warriors - where each one was headed and who was about to betray who and perhaps even glean some salacious gossip of who was sleeping with who and who was sleeping with who while sleeping with who. More importantly, he watched like a hawk to make sure Ashkaari and him were never the last left behind to face the Gurgut’s wrath.

Ashkaari noted instead all the mannerisms of the Great Gurgut, from how it swung its tail to the speed and trajectory and the force of its attacks. He noted the frequency in which it bit at the Imekari - a precise frequency of once every three tail lashes - as he later reported when they were in the safety of the caves. He noted how often it retreated (quite) and what it meant (it was about to charge) and how many tail lashes that followed with (two, with a feigned third and a fatal bite). He even noted how long and how often the Great Gurgut was in the watery parts of the swamp-nest.

“No, don’t you break out that smile at me. This means nothing. I’m not allowing to use your magic.” He said, holding up a hand. “But if I - and all of our allies, if we ever do find any - were to fall, I want you to give it every bit of sass you’ve got and high-tail it out of there.”

“What, up the muddy cliffs I can’t climb and the rocks I can’t scale, and out of danger into the swamps full of Gurguts I can’t beat?”

“Taas, please.” He admonished with a pinch to the small elven nose and a tap on Taas’ freckles.

“You must be joking. I ain’t leaving you to be ox-stew and that’s the end of that. And don’t you get uppity with me either. I’ve got silencing Vint trickeries that I’m just itching to try on someone.”

And if that showed his confidence with his magic - well, he was going from strength to strength with it. He’d never known what he was capable of until now. He’d always been practicing magic in forests prone to burning down, or else hiding behind the wells of Tevinter courtyards. For companions he’d only ever had Qunari who hated his kind and Tevinter mages who would love a blood sacrifice with magic.

 But now, for the first time of his life he could speak freely about his magic without risking death or dismemberment. He could whisper into the dark - _suppose we used lightning magic on your balls_ \- and have a reply - _not in a thousand lifetimes_ \- hissed back at him. He was part of a conspiracy, no longer only the holder of a secret. To hold a secret was a solitary, lonely act. To be part of a conspiracy was infinitely warmer.

Wasn’t Ashi’s discomfort a small price to pay for that? Not Taas to pay, but still, wasn’t it a small price to demand of the Qunari?

 

 

\--

 

 

Then there were no armors to mend and no hulking Qunari to patch up.

For a week, Ashkaari had decided they would buckle down and think up their grand war plan - and hopefully the Great Gurgut would continued to be weakened by the other teams. Whatever this war plan was, Taas had no faith in it. What kind of plan could you make with two puny Wardens and a Thane in the enemy’s board? Whatever the plan was it would be just the both of them staying one step ahead short of death, and accomplishing nothing until Ashkaari accepted he needed his Saarebas for victory.

In Taas mind, there was absolutely no way they would win this without his magic.

What about going home and accepting the second-grade honor of having survived the ash mountains instead? For Taas that would be good enough, although he would be a nervous wreck because there was no surety to it and he’d have to live knowing that the Qun’s decision might make it so that his and Ashkaari’s paths may never cross again.

But was certainty worth death? Was it worth endangering Ashkaari, who had enough smarts in a single tit to put a battalion of Antaam to shame, who Taas was sure was the kindest, gentlest creature on this accursed land?

No. But that same creature was also as stubborn as he was kind, and already Taas know there would be no happy ending of cowardice for them.

So he spent the days lazily zapping Gurguts from another cavern.

It was connected to the one they made home, but looked out at nothing but tepid water and Gurgut stragglers. From his seat he would call lightning upon the Gurguts, and watched in amusement as they tried to scale the impossibly slippery cliffs to swipe at him. It was boring, repetitive activity, but every time he summoned the lightning he felt it answered to him like a long lost friend, and it gave him a frisson of pleasure.

He had thought flame magic would be his constant companion - certainly more than once Ashkaari had said he was like the flame itself come to life, with his red hair and his boldness. But instead it was the lightning that came to him easiest, coursing through him on a whim and striking where he willed them. It was impetuous power, the hellions of nature, and it suited him.

He’d patiently brought down the gurguts down, hurting them bit by bit with his magic until they keeled over. Cruel, yes, but he had the best masters to learn from. He called it a day when he’d fell three.

When he turned around he came face-to-face with Dath, an expression of true fear upon his face.

“S-S-S---”

Dath had turned purple, wheezing like a half-dead Qalaba. His hands clenched at the unwilling walls of the cave.

“S-S-Sa---” He tried again.

“Saarebas,” Taashath snapped, taking the Qunari by its horns. “Have some guts to say it right at least, won’t you? I am the Taar-breather, the seer of souls, the holder of the deathflame, bringer of plague---”

“Stop it!” Dath cried, clasping hands to his ears so dramatically Taashath would have laughed if it wasn’t so deathly serious. In a split second he was fully aware of the smallness of the cavern opening - three feet across and small enough that a fully grown Qunari would be bent in half to accommodate his horns - and the cliffs that laid right behind Taas. Dath was a pacifist, but even a puny elfling could murder him with a well-positioned shove now.

Taas gave him a look of challenge. When in doubt, deflect with impunity. “Why, Dath? Can’t say the word well? I heard they have parades of our kinds in the settlement. Surprised you didn’t learn the word then.”

“How could you?”

“How could I what? Exist?”

“This!” He gestured wildly, indicating all of Taas - or perhaps everything behind him.

“I could hardly cease to exist at a whim.”

“You aren’t supposed to be here at all! No Viddathari can be tainted by the Saar!”

“What are you going to do then? Tell Ashi? Don’t worry - he knows. And I’m a mage, y’know? I could sear you where you stand and still have lard leftover for dinner.”

“Stop that,” Dath complained. I don’t mean to… I don’t know! How long has Ashkaari known? And he still associates with you - when you’re a Saarebas?”

 “Yeah well, he’s in it for the great tea parties. We have tea every full moon at the riverbank, and after that we dance in the moonlight with vitaar made out of nug blood--”

 "Now you’re just goading me!”

“Glad you could tell,” He quipped, and raised his staff horizontally as much in defense as in threat. The staff hardly spanned half the width of the cave.

“Now you’re going to swear an oath never to tell, Dath, or no Arvaarad in this world will be able to stop me from immolating you in your sleep. You know how the Prayers of the Dead says that those who go by magefire shall live in glory only through their swords? Guess who doesn’t even have an anvil to his name yet?”

Dath saw through his bullshit. “I’m not going to keep this secret for you,” He must have had courage to join the expedition when he could have gone fishing for months, and he showed it with a hard set to his jaw now. “It would be a rejection of the Qun itself to be quiet where the flame wakes.”

“Are you not afraid of magic, then?” Taashath returned. He was nervous - Dath danced back and forth on the balls of his feet, as if he couldn’t make up his mind whether to collapse in fear or to charge and shove him off the cliff to end the discussion once and for all. There was an energy in the air too - charged and electric - that bore the knowledge that for all his talk Taas was not sure he could take on Dath. He was a Qunari in his prime - not the best warrior on hand, but still several stones heavier than Taas was.

“I’m not afraid of you!” Dath cried out, all bravado. “I’m not! The Arvaraad would never let you at me anyway!”

And it was then that Taas lowered his staff, seeing the familiar shadow cast by a torch in the distance. Their argument had carried further down the caves, and Ashkaari needed no protracted explanation as he emerged behind Dath.

“Ah, but the Arvaraad would never corral me. What then, Dath? Would you rest in ease seven handwidths away from me every night?”

One hand gripped the torch, and the other was at ease at his side, on the side where his dagger was strapped to his heels. His voice was smooth and soothing, the kind of voice he switched to when he was about to manipulate someone. Taas had seen the bastard at work - and been worked at - enough time to know.

“Ashkaari, you know this is wrong.” Dath started. “You cannot cover for a Saarebas - they are all demons in-waiting unless they’re under control. The Tamassarans -- no the Ariqun himself would darken your soul for keeping your silence on this.”

Ashi’s eyes flickered from Dath to his, all his thoughts private. He seemed to consider these words - a period of unnervingly long silence even if Taas knew he did not bring Taas thus far in order to murder him in the swamps. But did he? All the trust in this world, but Taas could not will himself to forget that Ashkaari had once threatened him with murder, despite the fact that it was long past. _Blood poisoned by rust becomes dark_. It didn’t help that it was yet another cave, with Dath’s words sounding surprisingly similar to Ashkaari’s ancient goodwill.

He held his staff tighter beside him, and Ashkaari’s eyes did not miss it. The eyes returned to Dath’s. If a decision was made, only Ashkaari knew what it was.

“Pretty tall cliff, don’t you think? Gurguts would never scale it,” Ashkaari continued conversationally. “No wonder you didn’t tell me about this entrance, Dath. Or perhaps you never knew.”

He leaned forward, towering over Dath on the pretense of looking past him, into the swamp below. He added jovially, “You could skin our hunts here. No need to bring it all the way to the swamps. Things could rot and die here, and the Wind would never hear of it and tell tales to the Ashaad. A good spot, wouldn’t you say?”

Dath, recognizing that he was outnumbered and outwilled, heaved a sigh. “Please don’t threaten me Ashkaari. We are friends, aren’t we?”

“Perhaps.” Eyes flickered to Taas. “There are also some things more important than friends.”

“I wasn’t going to tell on him, Ashkaari…”

“It seems like it’s not me you should be speaking to.”

“Taashath,” He corrected. “I’m sorry. But if they do ask…”

“You will deny knowing of Saarebas.”

“But I couldn’t possibly lie, Ashi. If they ask me--”

“If they do ask, Dath, you will know in your soul of souls that nothing separates him and you but a circumstance of birth, and that though the Saarebas are shackled because the Qun needs it to be so, and we look upon them and say that they must be glad for serving the Qun - we would much rather serve the Qun in freedom than in chains.”

“That is a rejection--” He sighed again, breaking himself off at the sight of Taas’ flared nostrils. The elf was ready for a brawl, cliffside be damned - and the brawl would start on the next uncareful word.

In the long protracted silence there was only the sound of Dath’s boot scuffling the floor. This time when he spoke he looked Taas in the eye.

“I will not speak to the Ari when we return. I swear by the Qun.” He added timidly. “I acknowledge that I know few things, and if Ashkaari demands it to be so he must have truer reasons than mine. As for you...”

He turned to Taashath, emotions of fear and guilt warring in his face. “I am sorry. I know only to hate you for what you are. But you are in no way as bad as a Saarebas is said to be. You would deserve to serve the Qun in the light.”

“Look at that!” Ashkaari beamed, slapping Dath on the back. “Your best recommendation yet, Taas.”

Taas could only smile, reaching for Ashkaari’s hand to herd the big oaf back to their cavern. For him, another person led into the circle of his conspiracy was more than just a danger - it was also a victory.

 

 

\--

 

 

_The bastard’s oath lasted all of eight fucking hours_ , Taashath thought.

At his throat was held an ornate dagger, small but made out of true-iron that Imekari were not allowed to wield. In Ferelden it was called Silverite, and it was sharp enough to cut Ironbark in half. This one was clearly bartered off the black market, sold by an artisan who must have reasoned to himself that a dagger the size of a small Qunari’s palm could do no harm. What could such a small blade do?

Murder an elven Viddathari, it seemed, was the answer.

The Qunari holding it was one Taashath did not recognize - a woman dressed in armor and armed to the teeth, hair shorn close to the scalp to further waver the line between male and female. If she had tits it was bound up against curious eyes. Either way, Taashath knew the one holding the blade was an Aqun-Athlok. One of extraordinary determination to decide so early in life who they truly are.

“Tasan?” He whispered out of gritted teeth.

The Aqun-Athlok nodded, his gaze flickering to Dath, who laid on the ground whimpering softly, quite the sorriest sight one could wake up to. Ashkaari laid on his side, snoring. He was usually a light sleeper, but had just returned from an evening expedition too tired to rise easily.

Tasan gestured at the mouth of the cave, illuminated weakly by the quarter moon. Taashath shook his head, knowing what sort of things crawled in the dark of Qunari lands.

“Go,” Tasan hissed, pressing the dagger deeper to make a point.

Taashath debated the merits of kicking the oaf awake, but figured that the blade would sink quicker than Ashkaari could react. He obeyed the order and with light feet walked to the entrance. Tasan indicated that he would have to keep walking past the entrance, and following those instructions, they headed down to the swamps, to a relatively dry clearing beneath their cliff.

“So, I heard you are a Saarebas.”

“I’ll gut that fucking Dathrasi, I will!” Taas burst out, turning onto Tasan. The dagger was no longer at his throat, but near enough that a lunge would still mortally wound him. “Well then, what are you going to do about it? Cut me in my sleep so the world will be one less Vint-scum? That’s twice in a day that I’ve had to say that, mind you.”

“No. You’re going to help me kill the Great Gurgut, and I won’t breathe a word of it to the Ari about you or Ashikaari. This is an oath I would swear.”

“Great, yet another oath. Are they having a sale of that? Not that the Qunari has invented commerce yet.”

“Charming. I hear they do have sales on elven blood though, in these far off Imperium lands that have invented commerce.”

His threats were short and succinct. Taashath hit him back where it hurt.

“Killing the great Gurgut won’t give you your brother back.”

Tasan barely flinched. Beneath the calm expression, a storm seemed to undulate. When he next spoke, the words were slower, infinitely more pronounced.

“I must retrieve the sword he lost in the swamps.” He said, referring to the Qunari’s strange custom of retrieving swords before bodies. The very fact that Rasan laid buried in the mountains was not that queer - whatever the Book of the Dead said, no feeling creature would leave their dead for Gurgut to gore when a peaceful burial was within reach.

“So take it and run.”

“The Great Gurgut sits upon it, as does a whole slew of mud and other rot. I cannot search the area unless it is dead. Therefore, it must die.”

“Eloquent.”

“Reasonable.” He swung the blade. “You will help me.”

“I’d think Ashkaari would be more help than I. He’s a warrior, and a good one at that.”

“It is not warriors I need, it is a miracle,” Tasan spat. “There are no warriors left in these hills that can take it down. Many have fallen, and they are not dead yet but dead of spirit, lying in these hills for the summer to be over and the Ashaad to come with the drums.”

“There is that Taar-whoever. Ashikaari said he was strong.”

“He is also alone. He is to be named Katari, I have heard. But not even the death-bringer can bring death alone. I do not need warriors. I need, as I said, a miracle. You will be that miracle.”

“Great, the one time someone appreciates me, they also expect me to do miracles. This escalated quickly.” Taashath sniped, knowing in his heart there was no way out of this short of Ashikaari charging out of the caves for them. Twice a day for stubby to save him was too much to ask for. What was he anyway, a damsel? No, this was his battle.

“Why don’t we at least bring Ashikaari with us? Surely another sword wouldn’t be remise.”

“Your tricks do not amuse me, elf with the twisted-tongue. I know you plot your escape. You are Viddhathari. You have no honour until it is proven.”

“I like how most of your realities have almost no basis in the Qun. The Qun says: you are all equal - and look where I am at midnight - drenched in fucking mud, threatened with murder, and called names.”

“The Qun has no brother to lose,” came the reply. “Now march. Tonight is a full moon, and the Great Gurgut’s nest will be well lit. I will have it dead before dawn and start the day with our honor intact.”

“You always this mad or only since your brother died?”

“I’m always this mad,” Tasan assured him, giving him his first smile.

 

 

 

 


End file.
